


Illicit Affairs

by mouseratstan, niseag



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Angst, Cheating, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:40:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25564507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mouseratstan/pseuds/mouseratstan, https://archiveofourown.org/users/niseag/pseuds/niseag
Summary: Ben is a married man when he first walks into Pawnee's parks department. Leslie is only supposed to be an interesting bright spot in a dull town, not a distraction that keeps him from his job and sends him spiralling.What starts in conference rooms ends in meetings at midnight—and although Ben and Leslie keep telling themselves they can stop, maybe they can’t. Maybe they’ll make this mistake another million times.
Relationships: Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt
Comments: 25
Kudos: 56





	1. Chapter 1

Just another goddamn town, that's all it's supposed to be.

It's tiny and kind of dirty, the citizens less than pleasant _or_ hygienic, not to mention the raccoon that he nearly trips over in the middle of the sidewalk—but still, this is Ben’s home for the next two months. A dimly lit room at the Super Suites Motel and an uncomfortable mattress, enough to make his back ache as he strolls into City Hall for his first day on the job.

“Hey, cheer up, buddy,” Chris exclaims, clapping Ben on the back. “It's just two months. Then we can go back to Indy. That's not so bad, is it?”

Which, of course, is Chris’s response to everything: _that's not so bad._ Ben supposes it's better than _this is amazing,_ which is his other most frequent response.

_It's just another town._

It's the mantra he plays in his head all day as he and Chris move from department to department in Pawnee City Hall, meeting department head after department head. It's a blur. A strange haze of activity where none of the faces stick, he doesn't remember a single name, and every voice is the same. He keeps his exact routine, sitting down with his padfolio, going over numbers that he doesn't even have to think about anymore. The voice that comes from his lips doesn't sound like his own, but rather a man he doesn't recognize.

It's just another town.

“I'm Deputy Director Leslie Knope.”

It's the first sentence that sticks out to him all day, and it's just another introduction. A woman shakes hands with Chris and Ben just keeps his head down, knuckles white as he grips his padfolio, thinking already of getting into bed and ordering food in tonight at the Super Suites. It's a much more pleasant thought than this mindless work.

“Would you gentlemen like a tour?”

Chris is enthusiastic, as always, his smile so bright that Ben wonders if it ever makes his face hurt. He waxes poetic about how great Pawnee is already, so smitten by these two employees in front of them, as if he's known them for years. Of course he wants to take a tour. He's already seen the whole damn building but that wouldn't stop him from seeing it all over again. No—god no, it's the last thing Ben wants. The day is already long enough.

“Ben?” 

“I don't think that’s a great idea—”

“Let's do it!”

And Ben just sighs, as quietly as he possibly can, bringing his hand up to his brow. _Of course._

This woman—short and blonde and as ridiculously enthusiastic as Chris is—she talks a lot. More words than Ben can even take in, more words than he _wants_ to take it. He travels a couple steps back and prays this tour will be short, but this blonde seems to be nothing if not thorough. It's infuriating, really, and Ben finds himself watching her, as if to study if she ever gets tired, if she ever falters, if she ever stops smiling. Because no one is this positive all the time. He's even seen Chris fall into deep spirals, crying over nothing.

And she is oddly bright in a way that kind of hurts Ben’s eyes, makes him want to take a step back and study her, the first person today that he's looked at for longer than a second without glassy, unfocused eyes. It makes him want to run.

But it also kind of makes him want to stay.

“Do you have a second?” he asks her as soon as the tour is over, as soon as Chris leaves, practically running out the room. It's fine. Ben has this routine memorized. He knows exactly what he has to say and exactly how this meeting will go. He'll leave with just enough information to get by and then it'll be over, and he’ll be able to shut himself off as soon as he walks out these doors.

She starts just as so many do—with transparent flattery.

“I really like your shirt—”

“So, I'd like to talk about where you think there's waste within your department.”

They speak at the same time, the blonde and the man with the mustache. Ben considers it just a little out of the ordinary.

“There is none.”

“Where do I start?” The mustached man hasn't yet intrigued Ben, definitely not enough to commit his name to memory, but he's strange enough now to warrant some special attention. “What exactly will you be cutting? And how much of it? And can I watch you do it while eating pork cracklings?”

 _Okay, it's best to just ignore that._ “Okay, let's start with personnel,” Ben says, looking down at his open padfolio for a name he won't remember in another minute’s time. “What can you tell me about Jerry Gergich?”

“He's one of the best people on the planet,” Leslie says instantly, and Ben just knows in his heart of hearts that she's lying to his face. “He's universally adored here. If you fired him, there would be a revolt.”

Ben purses his lips and stares at her, just stares at her, finding it a little hard to keep himself numb. He feels that tiny pinprick of irritation surface, some kind of emotion that he doesn't want to have, and then he just gets colder. “Okay, you need to understand that just to keep this town afloat, we probably have to cut the budget of every department by forty or fifty percent. Okay?”

“Well, Chris said that you just have to, you know, _tinker_ with things.”

“Yeah, he said that because that sounds a lot better than _we’re going to gut it with a machete.”_

And that should be the end of it, it really should be. He is cold and harsh and his tone has a sense of finality to it, something that should shut down Leslie and force her to keep her mouth shut. Because she wants to keep her job, of course she does. He's made it abundantly clear that her job is in his hands and it's in her very best interests to keep quiet and answer his questions instead of veering off track.

And this is where things really go off the rails.

“You're a jerk.”

“I'm sorry?”

She says it with such conviction, not like it's a slip of the tongue, not like it's something she's going to regret in a minute. No, she _means it,_ something tells him she really means it, and it's something that she feels so passionately, deep in her bones. Her jaw is set and her eyes hard and now Ben _really_ can't stop staring at her.

“I'm sorry, these are real people, in a real town, working in a real building, with real feelings.”

Ben quirks a brow. “This building has feelings?”

 _“Maybe._ There's a lot of history in this one, maybe it does. How can you be so blasé about this?”

She's fighting him. She's _actually_ fighting him. Anyone else in the world would look down and nod mutely, too terrified to say anything to his face, saving the death threats for emails after they've already been fired. No one has ever had the guts to call him a jerk to his face, especially not with their job on the line, never with this much passion.

This was supposed to be _easy._ Mindless work, numbers. But she's already giving him a run for his money.

“Because I didn't cause these problems, Ms. Knope, your government did.” He sighs, closes up his padfolio, and stands up. “I'll get what I need from the spreadsheets.”

It isn't until he leaves the department that he realizes hers is the first name he's remembered all day.

***

“Yeah, she yelled at me. Twice, actually. So I can’t say it's been the best day.”

There's sounds of exasperation on the other side of the phone, and Ben grimaces as he paces his tiny motel room, trying to settle on a shirt to wear to work.

“Did you tell Chris about it?” the voice on the phone says, and Ben sighs.

“Not exactly,” he admits. “Or Paul. He's the City Manager. I don't know, I probably just shouldn't have gone out with Chris last night.”

“You didn't have fun at all?”

“Not really. The place was crawling with City Hall employees. And I thought I would make nice and apologize to her when I saw her, but she was drunk—”

“Wait, she was _drunk_ when you talked to her?”

“Yeah. She told me nobody wanted me there—”

“I really think you should tell someone—”

Ben groans, putting his phone on speaker so he can pull his shirt on, doing up the buttons. “Listen, Rach, I think I'm gonna give her one last chance, okay? I'll leave her alone, avoid her, whatever. See if she comes to me. But she wasn't on City Hall grounds, so I'm not going to punish her for being… a little bit of an aggressive drunk. Does that make sense?”

Ben can hear her laugh, an exasperated little sound, as if she's shaking her head at him. “You're too nice to these people sometimes. You never did really stick up for yourself—”

“I'm fine,” he insists, grabbing for his belt and his tie. “Trust me, I'm not that nice. I just… pick my battles carefully. I don't get too involved.”

“I know you don't,” Rachel sighs. “At least try to have a good day at work today, will you?”

Ben grins, something sad and twisted about it. “No promises.”

***

“So, I’d like to apologize for yesterday.”

He's not sure why he's surprised she's here, in his office, actively apologizing. She looks a little softer now, a little sadder, if not slightly sick. Absolutely hungover. He can tell in the way her skin is pale and there are bags under her eyes, her hair a little out of place, unlike yesterday.

He's analyzing her too closely.

“Don't worry about it,” he tells her, unsure why he says that. She probably _should_ worry about it.

“No. What I did was out of line, twice. And I was worked up because obviously, you represent a threat to my department.”

Ben grimaces, sets his jaw—he doesn't want the blame for this, not again, definitely not from her. “Your City Council and your Mayor are the threats to your department. _We_ didn't do anything to get you into this situation, okay—?”

“Okay, look, Ben, I don't appreciate your callous attitude, okay?”

 _Here we go again._ “Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“Okay—”

“You may hold my fate in your hands like a small bird, but I still think you're an ass.”

The words hit Ben so strangely, like a sharp pang in his gut. And it's ridiculous, the effect they have on him, ridiculous that they were said at all. Here she is, putting herself on the line for a third time in only twenty-four hours. She doesn't care who he is, doesn't care what he's here to do. And there's a kind of oddly sincere honesty there that he can see in Leslie, something that sticks with him, that makes him want to know more.

He doesn't think he's ever been this curious in his life. It's dangerous. It's a kind of feeling he can't afford to have, if he wants to make it out of Pawnee unscathed.

Ben clenches his fist, and then runs his thumb over the cool metal on his finger, digging into it, as if to ground himself.

“Do you want to get a beer?”

She widens her eyes just so, just as surprised by the invitation as Ben is. “It's like, ten thirty in the morning.”

Ben releases his ring, stretches his fingers out, and goes to stand. And maybe this is the point of no return. “Yeah, you seem like you could use a beer. Let's get a beer.”

***

He tells her about Ice Town.

He doesn't know why.

It just sort of slips out, and she _knows,_ of course she knows. Of course a woman like Leslie Knope would know teen Mayor Benji Wyatt, even follow his campaign, be jealous of him when she really shouldn't have been. _Of course._ His campaign was just the sort of idealistic mess that would draw Leslie in, that would give her hope, and Ben wonders what that's like, to _believe_ as deeply as she does.

“I don't know why I told you that,” he admits to her, gripping his beer bottle. She's smiling, now, and _at him,_ something that makes him feel just a little bit better, a little more secure. “Please just… don't go spreading that around, only my wife knows about it.”

Something in her face changes, and her eyes dart to his hand, to his ring. For some reason, he wants to hide it from sight. “Oh, I won't say anything,” Leslie promises, a little softer. “I didn't know you were married. What's your wife like?”

It's not exactly the conversation he wants to have with her. It almost seems to draw him back, instead of forwards. “Rachel? She's… she's great. Really. I really love her.”

“Does she come with you? When you travel for your job?”

“Oh god, no.” Ben shakes his head, staring down at the label of his beer. “No, she's not really one for travel. She's back in Indy, at home, so for the most part we've gotten used to long distance.”

Leslie frowns, swirling her beer bottle around absently. “That actually sounds like it kind of sucks. I'm sorry. I didn't know.”

“There's nothing to be sorry about,” he insists. “We’ve gotten used to it over the years. She met me while I was an auditor, actually, so at least she knew what she was getting into.”

And tonight when he calls Rachel, he’ll tell her that he worked into the night, that he got so busy. That Leslie apologized, didn't yell at him, and there's nothing to complain about. Just another town, just another face, just more numbers to pour over in a meaningless blur, time after time again.

He’ll leave out the beers. He doesn't know why. He's not doing anything _wrong,_ not really. He's just studying Leslie, he decides. He will allow himself to fall into her whirlwind only just so, enough to know if she's as genuine as she seems, without falling so deeply that he can't climb his way back out.

A character study, Ben decides, as Leslie brings her beer up to her lips. Just because she's new, and she's interesting, and infuriating in a way that he's never felt before. 

Leslie smiles and pulls out her card to pay, giggling at some silly joke at his expense, and something in him twinges, doesn't feel quite right. He fingers his wedding ring again, just to feel it against his skin, to ground himself more than anything, bring him back to a reality that Leslie Knope is far too optimistic to see.

_It's just another goddamn town._

******

Leslie might have been lying a little. Just a couple of times. About Jerry, and about not realizing Ben was married. And most recently, about the circus music.

Fine. She might have been lying a lot.

The first lie is the easiest to justify. Jerry might not be one of the best people on the planet or universally adored, but he’s, you know, _fine_. Or at least, no one who isn’t from Pawnee gets to say he’s not fine. He’s two years from retirement and Leslie will eat a thousand limp salads before she lets some blow-in from Indianapolis rob him of the benefits of a forty-year career in public service. Her motives are pure, so it’s not like it’s really wrong of her to lie about his virtues.

The other lies are a little more complicated—but still, they are innocent enough. She’s only saving face, after all, not hurting anyone. 

The truth is she’d noticed Ben Wyatt’s wedding ring the moment they sat down in the conference room and he’d opened his padfolio to pages full of numbers that might determine her entire future. She’d watched his hands flex, caught the glint of gold in the fluorescent light. And the moment he’d said _‘gut it with a machete’_ Leslie had thought there must be nothing in the world more miserable than being married to this man who’s so hell-bent on tearing good people’s work apart.

She’d thought it then and she’d thought it all night long over beers and vodka cranberries and shots and she’d thought in the morning as she made her way to the management offices on her Ron-sanctioned mission to apologize to the stupid jerk. 

But then he’d made nice, told her about his ill-fated mayoral term and she’d softened for just a moment, remembered the giant, embarrassing crush she’d had on him when she was seventeen and dreaming of her own mayoral election and all she could do was play dumb, pretend she hadn’t spent the last twenty-four hours pitying his mysterious, long-suffering wife.

Maybe she’d actually felt a little bad for him after hearing his life story. 

And maybe there’d been a moment where he seemed to understand her—he’d talked about her plans to run for office like it was a foregone conclusion when she’s sure she hadn’t even hinted at it and she might have thought for a moment that maybe he wasn’t going to turn out to be that bad after all.

She’d gone away, actually _drafted cuts_ , brought them to him like a proud child and all but eaten crow—and then he just sits her down and says they’re shutting it all down anyway.

None of it even mattered.

So yeah. She’s lying about the circus music, because after all that, after all the crap about responsibility and tough choices and leadership, he’s taking the coward’s way out and closing an entire government when she’s sure if they just sat down and _thought about it_ there’d be a way forward.

Her head isn’t full of circus music at all, but she can’t exactly call Ben a jerk or an ass again. Not with Ron in the room, at least.

Sometimes it really is best to lie.

***

“I just need to stay away from Chris,” Ann says, nodding emphatically and pressing her lips together as if she’s trying to convince herself, “or I’ll just do something reckless and it’ll end terribly for everyone. Mostly me.” Her fingers tighten on her bottle of beer as she tips her head back to take a long swig. It hadn’t been hard to convince Ann to debrief about the whole Chris situation over beers and Leslie’s grateful for the chance to blow off a little steam. 

“I wish I could stay away from Ben,” Leslie groans, propping her elbow on the table and dropping her face into her palm. “I can’t believe I felt sorry for him, Ann! The beer thing was so _weird_ ,” she says, flopping back against the padded booth. “I mean, he even told me about… about his wife,” she finishes lamely, and she’s not sure why she’s keeping his confidence. He’s just another Indianapolis blow-in, after all, whether he was cute at eighteen or not, and it’s not like Ann would even care enough about Ice Town to remember that Leslie had said anything in the first place. Something in Ann’s expression changes from mild exasperation to genuine curiosity and, for some reason, Leslie feels exposed. “It sounded, um, sad,” she continues, frowning. “She lives in Indy and he’s always on the road and that’s, um, you know, no way to live.”

“Oh,” Ann says, nodding, still eyeing her with interest.

“It was… I don’t know. It was _weird._ ” Leslie picks up her vodka cranberry and scowls at it, swirling the glass in her hand. “Whatever. It was all just some kind of mind game or something because they’re shutting everything down anyway.”

“Is there anything you can do? I don’t know, like volunteer or something to keep things running?”

“He’s seriously such a jerk, Ann. Actually, I feel sorry for his wife. Can you even imagine being married to someone like that? She’s probably _glad_ he’s away so much. It’s probably the only thing keeping them together—him not being there. I mean, what would you even…” She can’t even imagine what you’d talk to him about. A vision of mean Ben and a woman with smooth, glossy hair laughing about his latest round of budget cuts and toasting with glasses of five thousand dollar champagne over some kind of haute cuisine crosses her mind and she scowls. “Ugh, it’s just, the _nerve!_ ”

Ann presses her lips together for a moment, stirs her drink with its straw. “Leslie,” she says tentatively, “is it possible you’re kind of preoccupied with this mean Ben thing?”

“What?” Leslie shoves her glass across the bar so violently that a little vodka spills over the side, splashing her shirt. “No! He’s trying to ruin my career. Of course I’m… um...” She trails off, grabbing a napkin and blotting the stain, not quite sure why she’s avoiding Ann’s gaze. “So anyway, what are you going to do about Chris? Hm? Let’s talk about that.”

***

On top of the nine meetings she’s tried to schedule so far, Leslie sends the state auditors another three outlook invitations before the public forum about the government closure, and when she gets back to the office she sends another two for good measure before she decides to take matters into her own hands and just _demand_ that they reinstate the Freddy Spaghetti concert.

Chris proves to be very obliging. So obliging, actually, that Leslie feels robbed of the chance to make her emotive and well-researched case, but he lets her give the speech anyway.

She’s on the part about price tags on children’s happiness when there’s a shadow in the doorway and Ben says, “Leslie Knope. What a surprise.” He’s not even being sarcastic, he’s just being his usual dry boring self and that’s the thing that irritates her the most.

He walks right past her towards his desk and Chris tries to bargain with him. “There was a big concert. Now there’s not. Is there anything we can do about that?”

He doesn’t even look up from the manila folders he’s palming through, just says, “No, there isn’t,” in a sort of sing-song voice that screams _‘I couldn’t give a shit.’_

“It’s too bad,” Chris says too quickly, loosening his tie. _“Damn!”_ Leslie looks on with no small amount of horror as he strips his clothes off to reveal running gear and heads on out. This is the second time she’s steeled herself before facing Ben only for Chris to be his own disarming kind of crazy and she’s not sure she really has him figured out yet. Maybe Ann should stay away.

She shakes her head, clears it, and approaches Ben’s desk. She’s on a mission here. Screw Chris.

“Ben,” she says, smiling until it hurts, “let’s talk solutions.”

But Ben does not want to talk solutions. Ben wants to make snippy cutting motions with his arms and point at her with a pinched thumb and forefinger as if it’s less aggressive than shoving a finger in her face and he wants to mansplain the government organisational chart to her like she hasn’t had it memorized since her twenties. He wants to tell her that Pawnee is broke, not special, worse than Idaho.

So Freddy Spaghetti isn’t looking good.

“Frankly, you’re not even supposed to be here, Leslie,” he says, like he’s making some kind of grand concession just letting her stand on the floor of the building she’s worked in all her life. “You’re non-essential.” He smooths his stupid tie and sits back down at his desk.

“That’s not your call,” Leslie protests, combative.

“I know,” Ben says, not even looking up from his computer. He couldn’t be more disaffected or condescending if he tried. “It’s on your badge.”

“What? This? This isn’t me.”

He looks up and into space like he’s _so hard done by_ and she kind of wants to hit him.

***

She can’t stand the government shutdown, she can’t stand the budget crisis, but what she _really_ _can’t stand_ is that they’re cancelling Freddy Spaghetti. She needs ideas. Needs help.

She tries Mark, who she’s beginning to realize is actually kind of _un_ helpful. And he’s also quitting the government, which is something only an insane person would do, so she’s not sure his advice would be worth heeding.

She tries Tom, who is... busy.

She tries Ron, but he isn’t in his office and won’t pick up his phone.

Ann’s at work, so Leslie makes and discards binder after binder of ideas until Ann finally calls her in the middle of the night.

“You know what?” Ann says, “I’m just gonna stay away from _all guys_ right now.”

“Yeah, less man time, more Ann time!” Leslie agrees. “The only guy I care about right now has wild, crazy hair and a ukulele that doubles as a water gun.” Ann looks lost, so Leslie clarifies: “Freddy Spaghetti.” She’s not sure she’d count it as another lie, but it doesn’t feel exactly true either. She cares an awful lot about how mean Ben is ruining everything, but she’s not about to give Ann any more fuel after she’d gotten weird about the whole thing last night.

“Oh,” Ann says.

“Children’s concerts aren’t a priority these days,” Leslie sighs, lamenting _poop tubes_ being a higher priority for the town with a grimace of disbelief. “But what are you gonna do?” She’s tried every angle and she might have to admit that, if the auditors are right, there isn’t any money. “That’s just the way it is, and…”

“Wait,” Ann interjects. “Wait wait wait wait. If all the parks are closed, why not just have the concert in the lot behind my house?”

Wait. That’s an idea. Leslie has already paid for half the stuff herself. She’s pretty sure she’s got favors in the wings with a lot of the vendors and she knows her way around a hammer well enough to help Mark build a stage if she can talk him into it.

She blinks like she’s seeing fresh sunlight as a fresh sense of energy and possibility washes over her along with that tingling feeling she gets sometimes when she’s about to do something totally risky but totally worthwhile. 

Leslie smiles. “Ann, you devious bastard.”

***

They’re on a countdown to five o’clock.

This isn’t going to make all the problems in the town go away. Leslie knows that. But it’s going to make a lot of people happy.

Even Ron kind of concedes that it’s worthwhile doing insofar as he doesn’t try very hard to talk her out of it.

She’s timing sixteen minutes for premium bounce on the jumping castle and letting Ann down easy about the three hundred people who’ll soon be using her house to pee _(hopefully not all at once, but Leslie’s not in the business of overpromising and underdelivering so she makes no assurances)_ and everything seems to be more or less on track until Ron himself skids in to warn them that the auditors are coming. She’s glad he’s finally seen the light about saving government jobs, but this really isn’t ideal.

They stroll in like big city bigshots in khakis and sunglasses and it couldn’t be clearer that these are not Pawnee people.

Chris jumps on the stage and tells them all they’re doing a better job than Mother Teresa and Gandhi combined and then he says, “My partner Ben wants to say something,” and Leslie begins to see the pattern here. Nice Chris, mean Ben.

“Yeah,” Ben says, picking up Chris’s baton, “we’re shutting this down.”

“Damn!” Chris cries, “that’s terrible news. Surely there has to be a solution, Ben.” Yesterday, Leslie might have thought, ‘ _See? Solutions. Chris gets it!’_ but today she thinks he might just be the good cop here, still a cop after all when all’s said and done.

Ben jerks his head decisively. “No.”

“Ben says no,” Chris says, too quickly again, like he had this morning.

“The concert is cancelled, everybody,” Ben says. His eyes are still shielded by those stupid wayfarers but she knows they’re hard and probably even triumphant. Ben cuts the air with his hands like he plans to cut the budget and her dreams and Leslie has had _enough_.

“No,” she says, squaring her shoulders. “Here’s the thing, though, Ben. It’s not cancelled. We’re putting it on.” She’s coming towards him, waving her arms around them, taking in the stage, the vendors, the activities. “Because the stage is already built. Everything was donated for free by local vendors. Everyone here believes that what we’re doing is essential.” She’s close now and she takes one finger and waves it at him, standing her ground. “Freddy Spaghetti will sing.”

Except he won’t. Donna says he won’t. Well, fine. Whatever. She’ll handle it, like she’s handled everything else. “Freddy Spaghetti may not sing,” she says with a smirk that’s really more of a wince, “but something _much cooler_ is going to happen,” she spreads her fingers, points at him again to make sure he knows she’s serious. “I think.”

She grabs Ann and stalks off before he can call her a liar.

He’s not going to make a liar of her.

***

“Hello Pawnee,” she says, wishing for anything but this.

They’d been so close to a solution, but now Andy’s in hospital and Ann’s gone and oh god, she’s really doing this. Chris is in the crowd, but Ben’s nowhere to be seen and Leslie sends silent thanks to the heavens for this one mercy.

It’s all very touch and go as she takes the stage and starts singing. Chris Traeger claps twice along with the song and beams at her and it’s the most mortifying thing that’s happened all day, which is really not insignificant, but she’s definitely in too deep to do anything but continue with this.

And then, out of nowhere, Freddy Spaghetti is here when he’s supposed to be at a library.

What the hell?

“Hey, I thought you were playing in Eagleton,” Leslie says, smiling incredulously through her confusion, one hand over her mic.

Freddy leans in, his own hand over the mic on his headset, sounding thrilled with the turn of events, all things considered. “All I know is this guy showed up, made me a much better offer.” Leslie follows his eyeline to the side of the stage and sees Ben there by the fence. “And I am all about the money, baby.”

She can’t really take any of this in except for the fact that Freddy Spaghetti is singing and Ben Wyatt seems to have had something to do with it. He’s got his arms crossed, sun glinting golden off his wedding ring. He looks up at the stage with a smile that’s not derisive or smug or mocking and she hasn’t seen anything like it on his face before. He looks almost pleased with himself in a way that’s… well, if she didn’t know any better, she might say he almost looks shy. But that isn’t possible. 

Leslie finds her way down towards the fence. Freddy Spaghetti is naming pasta and the kids are shouting the names back and Leslie isn’t really convinced that egg noodles _are_ a pasta but the children are having fun and that’s the entire point.

Ben’s looking at Freddy when she comes to stand next to him, with some kind of satisfaction and a casual sort of levity ought to seem alien on someone so uptight and so stern. But it suits him. She isn’t sure why she thinks so.

She isn’t sure what his play is here. There’s a catch somewhere.

“Why did you do this?” she asks after taking a few moments to puzzle with it and failing to come up with a theory that makes any sense. He’s here to gut the government. He’s got all the power. He’s not sticking around. _(And he’s married,_ a small, shameful part of her adds, as if she’s vain enough to think he might be _interested in her.)_

She just wants him to give up the game, whatever it is.

“I’m not a monster,” Ben says, turning his head to her. “I want the kids to have their concert.”

Well, she hadn’t considered that. That maybe she got through, with some of what she’d said about service and making people happy. Maybe it _is_ in him to care a little. “Mean Ben has a soft spot,” she says, smiling a little smugly. It’s ungracious of her, but he doesn’t seem bothered.

“Mean Ben? Is that what you guys call me?” He’s smiling and it’s still that strange, warm smile she’s not used to seeing on him, the one that suits him.

“No,” she lies, shaking her head emphatically. “No no no.” Leslie turns back to watch Freddy as Ben leans in.

“Look, this is really great today,” he says sincerely. There’s a serious streak in him, like he’s trying to get through to her. “There’s going to be a lot of pain ahead, Leslie.” And the tone is back, the one that reminds her of college lectures. “We have to cut thirty-two percent of the—”

“Just… Can you stop it?” she asks, squinting. Her smile at his change of heart hasn’t quite faded from her lips yet and she’s not ready to let him barrel straight back into being a jerk. “Just for one moment, enjoy the fact that you provided a service for people. Not a cut,” she says, shaking her head. “A service.” She looks back at the smiling, screaming children, jumping on the grass in the sunlight. “And they love it.”

He says nothing for a second, just smiles, looking amused. “Biggest service was getting you to stop singing.”

***

She thanks her friends, the best and most important people in the most important government in the best city in the world, but Leslie can’t shake the feeling that maybe she should have thanked Ben Wyatt.

The more she thinks about it, the less convinced she is that he cared about the concert, less convinced he really was swayed by her arguments.

But she’s still not sure what it was that made him change his mind, and the thought makes her very uncomfortable.

***

She puts together the classiest, most distinguished outfit she can for the day she walks into the emergency budget taskforce.

“Morning,” she says to Ben, strolling in early with her shoulders back and a lazy, assured smile.

He looks up from his papers warily. “Hi,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

Leslie smirks. “Ron made me the official Parks and Rec representative for the budget discussions.”

“That's only supposed to be…” Ben waves an open hand with the air of a man who’s had this discussion too many times before, and she’ll admit that maybe he’d have a point, except—

“Essential personnel.” Leslie holds up her new badge with green instead of red and a fresh photograph of her with wide, clear eyes. “Yeah,” she says coolly, in the same way a five year old might say _‘too bad, so sad.’_

Ben gives her a dry look that says he thinks he ought to have seen this coming as she takes a front-row seat and shoots him a charming smile.

“So, shall we get started? I have _so_ many ideas,” she says, knowing full well that she has bested him this morning and that he knows it too.

There’s something thrilling about this kind of banter, the suspense, the triumph of winning. Something exciting about a battle of wits and wills with someone she has no personal stakes with, someone off limits who’ll come and go.

She’s got nothing to lose with Ben Wyatt and only a better Pawnee to gain.

Ben raises his eyebrows at her, half a smile on his lips, and Leslie can tell he’s not even angry. 

She’s sure that’s going to change in about ten minutes’ time, that whatever peace they had yesterday and are holding onto now is fragile and fleeting.

She’s sure they’re going to be at each other’s throats again in no time at all. 

But still, Leslie would be lying if she told you she’s not looking forward to the summer.


	2. Chapter 2

The thing about getting in too deep is that you don't realize you have until it's much too late.

It's a gradual process, even, and it gives you all the time in the world to realize you're slipping, to hit the breaks and take a step back, but Ben never feels himself start to fall. He feels as if he is on even ground with both legs rooted to the surface, when in reality he's sunken down several feet where he stands. And until the ground swallows him and he can no longer see, he thinks he's fine. He thinks he's solid.

She's just a friend and it's just a town.

But there's a certain thrill in fighting her, he finds out. He isn't so nearly irritated as he makes himself out to be when she shows up for her first budget task force meeting, flashing her new tag with _essential_ written all over it. Actually, he's excited. She's interesting, and she’ll be a lot more fun to deal with than anyone else in City Hall. She might even make the time go by faster.

It's a month in when it starts to get really bad. Hours feel like minutes when she's standing in front of him, shouting impassioned speeches and pouring over her notes, demanding he make budget changes that he just can't afford to. And maybe some he could swing it, but there's something about the way her face scrunches up when he says _no,_ how she stands her ground and stomps her foot and tries even harder. She won't leave him alone. Actually, she tries to schedule another several meetings with him. All of which he rejects, just because he knows it'll mean she’ll continue to persist, and he’ll hear more of her. Maybe she'll even yell again.

Leslie Knope is a sight to behold when she yells.

He starts to follow her after meetings just so she can keep talking, and he soon realizes he isn't even hearing the things she's saying— he's just listening to the sound of her voice. The way it rises and falls, how quickly she powers through thoughts, how sometimes she rants so passionately she has to gasp to catch her breath afterwards. It's funny, and Ben can't help but smile everytime she does it, because it's almost infectious, the way she cares about things. He's never met anyone in the world that's just as sincere as she is.

“What? Did I say something wrong?”

Ben snaps out of his reverie to see Leslie, holding three brightly colored binders in her arms, hair tied back at the nape of her neck and a pen behind her ear. She looks up at him with wide eyes, surveying him, tilting her head just so.

“Uh, what’s that?”

“You were looking at me weird,” she says. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He doesn't even realize he's doing it, doesn't know what he looks like. But he knows somewhere deep inside him that he stares at her with something akin to awe, pure wonder, his eyes following her wherever she goes.

“No reason,” he tells her.

Ben starts walking her to her car after every meeting just so they can continue their debates.

He supposes he might be addicted.

***

City Hall opens up again and they're in maintenance mode. There's no money for parks and rec, not like Leslie wants there to be. But this time he really isn't pretending—there's just enough for two basketball teams (who will develop a great rivalry) and they'll work out the rest as they go.

And he doesn't know why he underestimates her, because he likes to think he knows her well enough by now to see the fire in her eyes when she shows off her idea binders, that she won't simply _let this go._ He expects a lively debate, running into her in the halls, being forced to walk the other direction because she doesn't want to see his face. But what he doesn't expect is the lengths she’ll go to to get what she wants.

He's on a call with Rachel when he gets the text.

“—what? No, I've just been working late, that's all. Maintenance mode.”

“But _this_ late, Ben?” she sighs, sounding a little sad. “Is it really so bad in Pawnee that you're swamped this often?”

“Yes,” he lies, without giving it a second thought. “All Chris and I do is pour over numbers all day, it's almost impossible to keep this town afloat.” There's a small stretch of silence, and he knows she's frowning, staring at the floor, maybe curling her hair between her fingers like she always does when she wants to be near him. He knows that look very well. It always ends up with him wrapping her in his arms and kissing her face until she's laughing again. “I'm sorry, Rach. And trust me, if I could, you know I would be home with you right now.”

There's a shuffling on the other side of the phone, and the lightest of giggles. “Well, it's very big of you to be putting this much time into that town. I've always admired your dedication.”

“And I admire you,” Ben says, just as his phone chimes. He pulls it away from his ear to stare at the screen, seeing Chris’s name flash across it.

 _‘Guess who finally has a date with the lovely Ann Perkins tonight?!’_ the text reads, with definitely way more than the appropriate amount of exclamation points. And Ben frowns, because he's pretty damn certain that Ann Perkins made it _very_ clear she didn't want to go out with Chris. And Ben also knows Ann Perkins happens to be the very best friend of one Leslie Knope.

He starts slipping on his shoes. “Hey,” he says into the phone again, “that was Chris. There's an emergency work meeting to get to. I guess they found an error in the budget proposal.”

Rachel sighs again, not even trying to pretend she's not upset. “They need you now instead of in the morning? I was hoping I could get you on a video call. I miss your face.”

“I'm so sorry, honey, I miss your face, too.” He fastens up his tie, already sneaking date details out of Chris under the guise of wanting gossip from his friend. “We’ll video call tomorrow. Hey. You know I love you, right?”

“I know, I know. I love you, too. Be safe.”

“I will.”

It's the first of many lies he starts to tell.

***

Ben shows up on Chris’s date and Leslie is already there. And judging by the look on her face, like a deer caught in the headlights, he knows instantly what she's doing.

“What are you doing here?” she hisses.

“Just confirming a suspicion I had, Leslie.”

“What are you talking about? I had nothing to do with this date. They're both so beautiful they probably just want to see each other naked.”

He doesn't know why that line pisses him off so much, but it does. Here she is, using her best friend to get closer to Chris, to get money for her department, trying to play it off as mere happenstance. They just want to see each other naked. She's flushed as she stares at him and her arms are swinging wildly, and Ben imagines a universe where she attempts to seduce _him_ for parks department money.

Ben sets his jaw, shakes his head. “Okay, well, I know what you're trying to do, and you're not that good at being sneaky.”

There's a small flutter of foreign emotion in his gut when she glares at him, something so sudden it almost hurts. And he kind of wants to reach out to her, wipe that look off her face, smirking at her so smugly that it feels wrong, as if he might shove her to her knees at any minute.

Ben’s not that great at being sneaky either, it seems.

***

She proposes the Harvest Festival, and she even has all her coworkers line up and agree that if it doesn't work, they can eliminate the parks department.

It's crazy, it's nonsensical, and doesn't make any sort of professional sense for him to agree. But Leslie is begging him, pleading with him with everything she has left, putting everything out on the line for something that she cares about.

It's infectious, so he says yes. She tosses the pumpkin at him and when she meets his eye, he can't help it, he starts to fall further into her orbit.

Something in Ben finally comes alive that day.

***

He's never fucked up so badly in his life than when he finds himself bringing her chicken soup.

It's an old family recipe, and one he only makes for Rachel when she's feeling sad or sick. Something reserved for the family, kept close to their hearts, like some secret that can never be shared.

But he hunches over the tiny kitchen in his motel room, sweating in the heat, making the best damn soup he can for Leslie. He tells himself it's the least he can do—she's still so sick, and probably stressed about the Harvest Festival, and she just gave the best speech Ben has ever heard in his life.

He stops to pick up JJ’s waffles, too, just for good measure, just because he knows she loves them. He gives them both to her and all is amicable and well. He tells her the Harvest Festival is a go, tells her she did a great job, and she is glowing, all smiles as she stares at him.

There's something cautious there, in her eyes, almost suspicious. He doesn't even realize why she looks so guarded until her eyes flicker down to his hand, to his wedding ring, and then it all comes to him so suddenly that it's a miracle he doesn't fall right over.

“I'm just…” he gasps, holding his hand to his chest, the metal of his ring making an indent against his heart. “I'm just gonna… gonna go.”

“Okay,” she says, not even trying to stop him. “Um, thank you.”

“Yeah. I just…”

“Bye.”

“Bye. Goodbye. I'll, um… bye.”

Ben practically runs out the room, looking back only once to see her digging into her waffle. It's a mistake, a huge mistake, to take that one look at her, because now it's ingrained in his memory, some vivid image that will forever haunt him.

It's too late, _it's too fucking late._

He let himself fall too deep and now he's sinking rapidly, quicker by the minute, harder to stay afloat. Every inch he falls brings him closer to his grave, marked with a date as if it is so sure of his inevitable destruction.

He's barely keeping his head above ground. He's clawing desperately, tilting his chin up, but it's too late, too late.

Ben collapses in his car outside the hospital and tries to force himself to breathe, aching deep in his chest. He tries to insist it's nothing, it means nothing, because nothing has happened. The most he’s ever touched Leslie Knope is on her forehead to check her temperature, but he remembers even that sent a shiver down his spine.

He stares down at his violently shaking palms and suddenly it feels like his wedding ring is burning his skin, like some kind of punishment for even _thinking_ about another woman, for even imagining some kind of scenario where he could touch his lips to hers and swallow her gasps as she lies pressed underneath him.

But he can erase this, can't he? It'll go away. It's just a stupid little crush because Leslie is the most interesting thing in this godforsaken town, and his brain is craving some kind of stimulation. It'll be fine. He won't have to tell anyone about it, let alone Rachel, and then before he knows it he’ll be back in Indianapolis with his wife whom he loves and he’ll forget all about Leslie Knope.

It'll happen. He knows it will.

But Ben is foolish.

“Got your message,” Ben says, meeting up with Chris. “What's up?”

“I got a call from the boys upstairs, and they have a new assignment for us.”

 _This is good,_ so why does his heart hurt? “Okay.”

“And I feel like we should ask for an extension to stay here.”

Ben’s chest aches, his hands shake in his pockets, gripping on to his ring so tightly he's almost worried it'll dent. Static fills his ears, and he opens his mouth to refuse. He has a plan to get out of here, to get back home. Any kind of extension in Pawnee will just serve as the final nail in the coffin and Ben’s not sure even he can forever postpone this funeral.

“Yes, definitely,” Ben gasps, and he doesn't even remember saying it, doesn't remember forming the words. There are no thoughts in his brain.

But when he goes to bed that night still holding on to his ring, he knows, _he knows—_ he should've said no.

*****

The thing about falling for someone is that you’re often in the middle of it before you really realise you’ve begun.

If Leslie were to look back over those first few months, she’d see a dozen tiny, fleeting moments when she’d drifted a little closer to the edge of professionalism, a little further from solid ground. Nothing alarming, nothing improper, but movement all the same.

And the thing is, Leslie knows that history isn’t momentous occasions or grand gestures or declarations. History is made from a million little things building up to a tipping point greater than the sum of its parts, none of them any more essential to the outcome than any other, all of them dutifully playing their role in disaster.

She knows that everything great was once small. Knows that Rome wasn’t built in a day.

And there’s something else key here that Leslie’s letting herself forget. Something she’s putting aside because it isn’t pleasing or convenient—but the historian in her whispers that really, she ought to know better than this.

Because Leslie knows that dynasties fall. She knows that nations turn to dust. Empires crumble.

And by god, does Rome burn.

***

So it begins innocently enough.

He’s just a colleague who happens to be a friend.

Over the summer and into the fall, their teeth-and-nails competitiveness settles into something decidedly workable.

It’s not that things are easy. They’re not. Ben still demands more than Leslie wants to give and Leslie still clutches tightly to what’s hers, but there’s a space in the middle now where they can usually come to some sort of peace that leaves them both a little unsatisfied.

That’s what compromise is, after all.

In this grey space where there’s always a little left wanting, an understanding grows between them. That Leslie is just trying her best, and so is Ben, and it isn’t exactly either of their faults that their interests are at such great odds. And from the understanding grows friendship. Camaraderie. A strange solidarity between people who know they don’t belong in each others’ lives, who were set to be at loggerheads from the start and are determined to simply make the best of it.

***

They have breakfast meetings and business lunches and dinners in the conference room, and any one of them might be a red flag if not for the fact that they still share healthy sides of raised voices, a little snarkiness as an appetiser, frustration for dessert.

But as time passes, the frustration fades and snarkiness gives way to good natured teasing and easy smiles.

Leslie actually feels a pang of regret when she remembers he’s leaving town and asks to blame him for the time capsule fiasco.

And there’s this red hot spark of _something_ that flares in Leslie’s chest when Ben calls Ron’s girlfriend pretty _(because what is he doing even looking at Wendy when he’s married to someone else?),_ but Leslie chalks it up to indignation. Smiles and prides herself on feeling sisterhood with a woman she’s never met, and brushes aside the thought that perhaps she doesn’t feel quite so much pity for her these days.

***

Everything might still have been fine.

They might have held the Harvest Festival, raised the money, allocated it where it was needed and kept Pawnee running. Ben Wyatt might have been just another stranger who came and saw and left Pawnee and Leslie might not have thought much of it in the end, when all was said and done. She might have walked away with nothing but pride in having taken on the state government and won, in saving her town and distinguishing herself among her peers. 

It all might have been fine except for the fact that Leslie can’t walk away from a mess.

***

The first signs of disaster appear at Sullivan’s bar, during the pizza party for the police department.

If it wasn’t for Ron and Tammy and Tom and the unfolding fiasco, she might have been paying more attention to Ben and how close he comes to losing it. Might think about the shake of his hands, the catch in his voice, the way he looks set to run the moment he’s put under scrutiny.

She’s really, genuinely annoyed when Chief Trumple asks her what’s wrong with Ben like she’s responsible for him and her patience with him wears thinner by the moment until she finds Ron stirring a dram of whisky with a pathetic little stick.

And as soon as Tammy Swanson shows up in the bar, it’s all forgotten.

If Leslie had thought about it, she might have seen past her immediate irritation with him and noticed that Ben wasn’t just feeling out of place or trying to insert himself into a situation where it was Leslie who had the upper hand for once. She might have noticed the real anxiety that threatened to unravel him, might have paid attention when he said he was nervous. She might have questioned why he followed her to the police station and stayed by her side when she went to see Trumple in spite of it all.

She might have wondered what on earth possessed him to go and ask for the volunteer hours on his own.

But she doesn’t think about any of that.

She just teases him about those stupid calzones. Goes out to dinner with him. And she doesn’t notice that, for the first time, they don’t talk about work at all.

***

Leslie watches Ben fall apart on live radio with a quiet horror that verges on awe.

Her irritation with how the morning has gone falls away, her indignation about the Douche’s puerile jokes and her hard work being overlooked now entirely eclipsed by the shock of seeing steady, pedantic Ben Wyatt come apart at the seams, sanity spooling away from him like wayward thread.

There’s no getting around it: he’s a mess.

The others seem to think this is hysterical, but there’s nothing funny about it from where Leslie is sitting. He is their credibility and he’s melting away in front of them—but more than that, what Crazy Ira and the Douche are doing is cruel. 

She watches as Ben halts and stutters. She feels the urge to reach out to him, press a palm to his arm and assure him that Pawnee is better than this, that her town isn’t small and mean.

It’s not exactly appropriate but still, he is a friend. 

He’s protesting that he was just a kid when it all happened and it really dawns on Leslie, possibly for the first time, what it must have meant to him then—to be cast out and to be rejected and to run so far and for so long that he’s in Indiana seventeen years later without a place to call home.

And here is Pawnee, her pride and _her_ home, putting its worst foot forward and Leslie feels responsible somehow. It strikes her that she hadn’t exactly been welcoming herself and there’s something sharp that twists in her gut as she wonders if it’s possible that she hadn’t been any better than Crazy Ira or the Douche. She finds the idea so awful that she grimaces, revulsion written all over her face.

Thank god it’s not television.

She can’t stomach watching this. She wants it to stop.

“There’s also gonna be ponies,” Leslie offers desperately, but she’s ignored. Instead, they take a caller.

Ben tries to defend himself against a man who asks if he was twelve when he was an eighteen-year-old mayor and all Leslie can do is watch as he stutters, fumbles and stalls out.

The sound technician plays a spiralling _‘game over’_ effect and Leslie has never felt more defeated as she watches it all—the Harvest Festival, her own pride, Ben’s spirit—crash into flames.

***

Tom explodes in the soundbooth, away from Ben. “Your boy’s a nightmare!” 

_“I know,”_ Leslie protests, “but we need him!”

A flash of shame jolts through her as she remembers the party for the police, remembers how annoyed she had been when Trumple had made her responsible for Ben and how keenly she feels responsibility for him now. She feels a pang of guilt for missing the signs that perhaps he’s never been quite as together or quite as hard as she’d thought he was. 

And really, it kind of is her fault that he’s here. This was all her idea, and all he’s done since she pitched it to him is show up in spades.

She’s a little surprised as it occurs to her that Ben really has been trying.

***

She sends Ben and Tom to do a puff piece for Perd Hapley and does the _Pawnee Journal_ herself. Shauna Malwae-Tweep asks about it, of course.

“There’s no story here, Shauna,” Leslie says. “He’s just a dedicated civil servant who’s doing whatever he can to make sure that this is the best Harvest Festival ever.” It strikes her that she wholeheartedly believes what she’s saying, and there’s something about it that seems too familiar to her. She might as well be describing herself. It’s a thought that hits her with more force than it really merits, and in its wake she has to admit Ben Wyatt is actually a pretty good man. “And he’s easy on the eyes, too,” Leslie says aloud.

She couldn’t tell you why.

It is the wrong thing to say. To _think._ What is she thinking? Ben Wyatt might be a good man but he’s a colleague and her superior and not least of all, he’s married. 

“What exactly is the nature of your relationship with him?”

“Strictly professional,” Leslie says immediately. “Just friends.”

“So are you colleagues or are you friends?”

“We are colleagues with benefits.” No. No, no no no. “Colleagues who benefit from the fact that we’re also friends.”

Leslie grimaces and questions how it is possible that she is the one embroiled in disaster. She ends the interview, insists in a fluster that everything is off the record and prays that Shauna doesn’t publish any of it. It would be less humiliating to explain that she blew the interview so badly that there was nothing worth publishing than for this to come out.

She pictures Ben’s wife with a copy of the _Pawnee Journal_ dragging an innocent man over the coals because Leslie has momentarily lost her mind and wishes she could evaporate into the air and blow far away across the Atlantic.

Leslie flees her own office leaving Shauna and her tape recorder with nothing but an empty chair.

She wonders what the hell has gotten into her.

***

Perhaps she takes her frustration out on Ben when Tom drags him back to the office after Perd’s show.

The footage is a disaster.

He probably doesn’t need glasses. He’s obviously hallucinating. The _last_ thing Leslie wants to think about is his hands on some girl’s breasts. 

“What’s wrong with you?” she demands. “You look psychotic!”

He has his head in his hands and she knows she’s going too far but she just can’t stop herself from shouting about how he must have lost his mind as the guilt burns through her like acid.

She kind of hates herself for that.

***

Leslie, Tom and Ben drive to the television studio together to do Pawnee Today.

It’s a tense, silent trip. Tom is still simmering, Ben has retreated deep inside himself and doesn’t even blink as Leslie takes a corner too hard pulling into the parking lot and mounts the curb.

“Sorry,” she murmurs, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment before remembering she’s driving. “Sorry, sorry.”

She parks the car and Tom springs out of the front seat. “Tommy’s gotta jet,” he says, coming around to the driver’s side to lean over Leslie’s window. “I’m just gonna head on in, turn on the Haverford charm, smooth the way a little,” he says to Leslie, springing his hands open, and breaking into a cavalier grin. “Like a zamboni.” Tom slides a hand through the air, mimicking a zamboni on ice.

 _“Tom,”_ Leslie sighs, frowning, _“_ that’s not—”

“Catch you and boy wonder inside. Peace.”

Tom turns on his heel and swans through the carpark and into the bleak concrete building, vanishing through the revolving door. Leslie sighs again and turns back to Ben who is hunched in the back and looking out the window, clearly pretending not to have heard any of it.

“Ben…”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Leslie—”

“No, Ben,” she protests, unfastening her seatbelt and turning her body in the car seat to face him properly. “It isn’t fine. I was an ass to you earlier. And I’m very sorry about that.”

He lifts his head from the window slowly, a hint of surprise in his face as he turns to look at her. His forehead is a little red from resting against the glass for the whole ride over.

Leslie sighs for a third time and rubs her forehead. “Look, it’s just… it’s not you, okay? It’s the festival and everything—there’s just, you know, there’s a lot of stuff going on.” She can’t quite bring herself to admit that she’s second guessing herself, that she’s afraid it’s all been for nothing and she will have succeeded only in eliminating the parks department and getting all of her friends fired. And Leslie is certainly not going to admit to what happened with _Journal._ She can only cross her fingers and hope. “Anyway,” she says, “I shouldn’t have said any of that at the office. It wasn’t fair, and I’m sorry.”

Ben closes his eyes, shakes his head. “It’s my fault.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It kind of is,” he says bitterly. “I couldn’t string three words together, Leslie.”

“Tom said you were fine until they asked you about the mayor stuff.”

“But they did, and—”

“And it was awful and like a million kinds of unprofessional, and actually I feel like that’s kind of _my_ fault for dragging you into this.”

Ben frowns. “Dragging…” He sweeps a hand across his forehead and into his hair. “Leslie, I’m here because I decided to be and because I want the festival to be a success. Also because it’s my job. You think you made me do any of this?”

“I—no, I don’t think I _made_ you, I just…” she exhales, “I know I can be very, um,” Leslie gropes for a way to put it that isn’t entirely unflattering, “enthusiastic?”

Something about her turn of phrase seems to amuse him. “Enthusiastic.”

“Yeah.”

A small smile plays at the corner of Ben’s mouth as he considers her. “You’re incorrigible, is what you are.” He scratches his head and glances out the window, fingers drumming against the glass. The golden band on his fourth finger glints in the sun and he sighs and unfastens his seatbelt. “Come on. We’re gonna be late.”

“Right!” The interview. “Yeah. Yes.”

Ben cracks the car door open, climbs out into the afternoon light and stretches up on the balls of his feet, pressing his eyes closed. Leslie follows him and slams the door behind her. He jumps, then seems to remember where he is and plays it off with a dry chuckle.

Leslie grabs her folio from the back seat, locks the car and starts walking towards the studio, expecting Ben to follow. When she doesn’t hear his footsteps or see his shadow stretching beyond hers on the tarmac she turns back and sees him still standing by the car, shielding his eyes against the sun as he squints in the direction of the building behind her.

“You’re not going on camera, remember?” she says. “You’ll be fine.”

“What?” Ben says absently. “Oh. Oh, yeah, sure.” He frowns, shakes his head and starts walking, closing the distance between them easily. “Thank you, by the way,” he says as they amble towards the studio side by side.

Leslie turns to him, tilts her head. “What for?”

Ben shrugs but doesn’t elaborate.

“Sure,” she smiles, still a little confused.

She shakes her head and tells herself she must be imagining the softness in his eyes as he smiles back at her.

***

Tom is flirting with Joan, Ben is standing in the shadows far from the camera and Joan seems as friendly as she’s ever been. It isn’t saying much, but the situation so far could certainly be worse.

“Tom, I’m already married!” Joan giggles as Tom puts on the _Haverford charm._ It’s really all Leslie can do not to roll her eyes. She doesn’t like to be uncharitable to other women, but Joan has never struck her as faithful and there’s something in her empty flirtation that bothers Leslie more than usual today.

All of Tom’s smooth talking seems to have been in vain, in the end. The interview begins disastrously.

“Today’s guest is Leslie Knope,” Joan says, “who’s here to tell us how this year’s Harvest Festival is going to bankrupt the city.”

Leslie bristles. “Well, Joan, there’s a _lot_ of false information flying around.”

And it’s all downhill from there. Joan is volatile and combative—more so than normal, if that’s possible. “How many cities does Ben Wyatt need to destroy before he’s put behind bars?” she asks, and Leslie wants to scream.

She glances over at Ben, who had seemed more or less like he had himself together just half an hour ago and is now cradling his head in his hands, shrinking further into the shadows, and in this moment she makes a decision.

She thinks: fuck this. 

Leslie has known that Joan is small-minded and mean her whole life and she has dealt with this kind of treatment from her since she first started working at the parks department. Leslie made a choice and she is comfortable with the terms of engagement.

But Ben is an outsider and he is trying. Okay, sure, he’s an auditor. He’s here to make cuts. He can be a jerk.

But he isn’t Joan’s problem. He isn’t _Joan’s_ pain in the ass.

Really, if anyone has the right to be harsh with him it is Leslie. At least Leslie has skin in the game. It’s Leslie’s career, Leslie’s dreams, Leslie’s friends’ lives on the line. If Leslie has ever given Ben a hard time at least she has a case to argue.

There’s just something about presumptuousness, the impunity of it all that enrages her.

“Ben Wyatt has done nothing wrong,” Leslie says, loud and imploring and really honestly angry. 

Joan might want to be parochial and a bully, but Leslie is a better woman than Joan and she is not about to engage.

“You know what? If you want to ask him questions, let’s go for it, huh?” She glances at Ben who is violently gesturing _‘no’_ , but Leslie has had enough.

A part of her thinks maybe he just needs to face this head on, but really it isn’t Ben she is thinking of.

She is thinking that integrity means saying something to someone’s face. And if Joan doesn’t have integrity at least Leslie does and she isn’t going to allow Ben to be bullied by people who won’t look him in the eye. 

Joan splutters as Ben comes forward, stiffly approaching the soundstage and taking a tentative seat next to Leslie.

“We’ll just ask him a bunch of questions and we’ll get everything cleared and out of the way. Sound good? Yeah?”

“Great,” Ben mutters.

“Good. Let’s take some calls, Joan,” Leslie says, reaching for the handset.

The calls don’t start off great, exactly. Joan huffs, Ben stumbles and Leslie saves him. They aren’t coming close to making their way out of this mess.

But the point is at least they are being honest.

***

If there’s one thing Leslie has noticed about Ben it’s that he’s kind of a know-it-all. Not in an obnoxious way, but there’s a certain look of indignation he gets, a certain crook of his eyebrow and a _weltschmerz_ sigh when he knows he’s right and someone else is wrong, like he is offended simply on principle that there’s someone going around with a false impression of how things are in the world and it’s incumbent on him to relieve them of it.

He just can’t resist.

So when the call about every town Ben has been to being bankrupt comes in, it takes everything in Leslie not to smile.

Ben looks lost, but Leslie recognises the look. It’s not _helpless_ lost. It’s _god help me with these people_ lost. 

Leslie represses a smile as he launches into a righteous tirade, shaking his open hands like he is begging for a little common sense, and she knows her Ben is back. There’s something exhilarating about watching him in action when it isn’t Leslie on the receiving end. “Who doesn’t do dumb stuff when they’re eighteen?” he demands. “Joan?”

“Stole my gym teacher’s husband,” Joan chokes, looking really mortified for the first time Leslie can remember.

Leslie isn’t exactly sure what about this makes her stomach drop, makes cool dread shiver down her spine.

It’s just the indecency of it all, she supposes.

***

There are a few precious moments when Leslie feels like she’s walking on air when the interview ends, she and Ben having tagteamed their way through a dozen questions and answered them all handsomely.

But the feeling of triumph soon gives way to unease as Leslie remembers the _Pawnee Journal_ interview and feels her leaden gut sinking down, down, down. She looks over at Ben who seems to be faring just as poorly, retreating back into tightly coiled stillness and a mood of unease settles over the two of them; not shared, but carried separately.

Ben is last out of the car when they arrive back at City Hall. He lags behind, looking for all the world like he’s headed for the gallows.

“You guys go ahead,” he says. “I need to make a call.”

***

He doesn’t look better at the debrief. If possible, he looks even worse than before.

There’s absolutely no reason for it, as far as Leslie can tell.

By all accounts _(or at least by Tom’s, and Leslie is inclined to trust Tom on matters of social media and other young people stuff),_ Joan revealing that she was part of the infamous scandal of the eighties ought to bring in a ton of viral views, and the interview after that was really genuinely good. It might be enough to put the Perd thing to bed and as long as the _Journal_ doesn’t publish anything terrible, they might be more or less back on track.

Ben doesn’t seem to notice the conference room emptying or the motion across the table from him as Leslie tidies her stacks of documents and packs them neatly into binders and her padfolio. He’s just sitting there flicking back and forth between the same three pieces of paper, scowling. 

“Ben?” she says, leaning on her elbows. He doesn’t look up, just starts clicking his pen— _click, click, click-click, click-click-click—_ and if he hasn’t gone crazy already, Leslie is about to just from watching him. He needs a xanax. Or at least a beer. _“Ben!”_

He looks up, startled. “What?”

“Do you wanna get a beer?”

Ben frowns. “It’s a Monday.”

“Yeah,” Leslie says, thinking of the day after they met. “And you look like you could use a beer, so let’s get a beer.”

“Leslie, I don’t think—”

“We could invite Chris!” He grimaces. “Okay, so no Chris. But you need to unwind. Non negotiable. Beer, Ben. Beer. Beer, beer, beer—”

“Oh my god. Fine.”

***

Once she drags Ben to the bar, it occurs to Leslie that she doesn’t exactly know what to do with him. He needs cheering up—that much is clear—but this is brand new territory and she’s not sure yet what’s likely to help other than getting a beer into his hands as soon as humanly possible. 

Leslie makes short work of flagging down a bartender while Ben hovers by the bar, fiddling first with his phone and then with the end of his tie.

“Two Miller Lites, please,” she says, hopping up onto the bar stool and settling herself. She checks her blackberry for a news alert from the _Pawnee Journal_ and sags with relief when she finds nothing. Leslie shoves her phone into her purse and drops it neatly on the floor as the beers appear and Ben takes a seat next to her, looking at the bottles with one eyebrow cocked.

Leslie frowns. “That’s your drink, right?”

“Yeah,” he says slowly, with an air of surprise. “Thanks.” 

“Sure,” Leslie smiles.

He takes the beer and looks at it for a moment, clearly thinking something over, searching the label like it might hold some kind of answer. After a long pause, he sighs and brings the bottle to his lips, taking a long draught before setting it down on the bar again with a thud and yet another sigh. Leslie watches him, taking in the tension in his shoulders and the tiny twitch beneath his left eye. He looks tired. And if she thinks about it, he always looks a little tired. She chews her lip and considers him for a moment, thinks about his life story and his job and what it means to prove yourself. “How long have you been an auditor for?”

His brow furrows as he thinks. “More than a decade,” he says slowly. “Eleven years.” 

“Well, don’t you think you’ve done your time?”

“I’m sorry?”

She rests her palms on the bar as if to brace herself. “I mean, if you’ve been doing this for eleven years—going town to town, cutting things up and trying to prove you’re responsible and not just some stupid kid—don’t you think you’ve made your point by now?”

Ben says nothing. He only stares as his lips part in quiet surprise, fingers tightening on the bottle in his hand until they’re white at the tips.

Leslie barrels on, “God, it was half a lifetime ago, Ben. I’m not saying it wasn’t awful. I’m sure it was and I think about Pawnee and I can’t even imagine what it would feel like, but not everything that goes wrong is Ice Town all over again, you know? Sometimes a shitty day is just a shitty day. And I just think that at some point you’ve got to be done proving something. I mean, this is your real life, not a do-over,” she says, picking up her beer bottle and waving it, punctuating her point. She pauses to drink and finds herself landing back on the question she’s wanted to ask since the first time they drank beer together, and she decides she’s brave enough to ask. “Do you even like the work?”

Ben breaks from her gaze and looks at the bar. A long, pregnant moment stretches between them and Leslie worries she’s finally pushed too far; months of shouting and clawing and pushing every bound of professionalism as far as aggressing a state auditor is concerned all being nothing, in the end, compared to one stupid moment at a bar. But then he looks back up, a small smile in the corner of his mouth, a soft crinkle at the corner of his eyes.

“Some of it,” he says, so quietly she almost misses it. There is something in his gaze that unnerves her. Something deliberate and intense. Leslie drops her eyes to her hands, runs her thumbs over the pads of her fingers as heat rises unbidden to her cheeks. “Right now, I like it,” Ben murmurs.

Leslie licks her lips nervously, takes her lower lip between her teeth and bites down just a little. “What I’m trying to say,” she says slowly, swallowing hard, “is that you should cut yourself some slack.”

Ben laughs at that and Leslie looks back up. He’s earnestly smiling now. “Oh, sure,” he teases. “Sage advice from the master herself.”

She frowns. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“When’s the last time you cut yourself an inch of slack?”

“I don’t understand.”

He looks at her dubiously, as though she is missing something very obvious. “Remind me, what’s the goal of the Harvest Festival?”

“What does that have to do with…” Leslie trails off, catching his meaning, and rolls her eyes. “Oh.”

“There it is.”

“Okay, I see,” she smiles. “Very clever.”

“It was, wasn’t it?”

“Well, anyway, it’s not the same,” she says, shifting in her seat. “I love Pawnee. You just go around like you’re a martyr or something.”

He frowns, looks like he’s about to protest but then just sighs and shakes his head wryly. “Leslie, I think most people would say _you’re_ ‘a martyr or something.’”

“Oh my god. The point is it’s going to be fine, and if it’s not it still isn’t your fault.” Leslie knocks him gently with her beer bottle and Ben smiles again. She feels herself flush and looks away from him and his soft brown eyes, casts her gaze around the bar and lands on the run-down billiards table in the corner. An idea springs to mind and Leslie grabs it with both hands. She sits up straight and turns to him, smiling brightly. “Anyway, stop thinking about it, dummy,” she says. “Let’s play pool or something. I’ll kick your ass.”

Ben raises an eyebrow. “You think you could kick my ass at pool?”

“I know I could.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well it’s on, buddy. Right here, right now. Winner buys the next round.”

“Great.”

“I really think you’re underestimating how good I am at pool.”

“I really think you’re underestimating how much time I’ve spent in bars.”

***

Leslie loses the first game of pool and challenges Ben to a rematch that turns into another three games, all of which she loses sorely and with no small amount of vitriol. Ben only smiles and picks up the bar tab. _(“I’m on Indianapolis money. Call it economic stimulus.”)_

“Do you know how many shitty bars I’ve played pool in?” he asks, squinting as he lines the cue up for a shot. “Gotta be at least fifty.”

“You play a lot of pool,” Leslie hiccups. “And Sullivan’s isn’t shitty.”

“That’s why I’m kicking your ass.” He draws his arm back and shoots more steadily than he has any right to after five beers, knocking a blue ball neatly into the far left pocket.

“Show off.”

Ben shrugs, passing her the cue. “Hey, I’ve seen worse bars, I guess.”

***

“You threw that game,” Leslie accuses.

“I did not.”

“You sunk the eight ball on purpose, you cheater.”

 _“Cheater?_ I lost and you’re calling me a cheater?”

“If you lose on purpose that’s cheating.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because you robbed me!”

“I what?”

“I was going to beat you properly—you know, with dignity, and honor, and you robbed me of the satisfaction—”

“Okay so first of all, you were _not_ going to—”

_“LAST DRINKS!”_

***

They stumble out into the darkness sometime after nine, six beers in and laughing.

The cool night air burns against Leslie’s flushed cheeks and she presses herself up against the exposed brick wall, letting the roughness of the clay against her hands ground her. The silence of the street is almost dizzying after the clatter and shouting in the bar and she focuses on the fresh air in her nose and lungs as she wills her head to stop spinning. There’s a soft thud and a sudden renewal of warmth as Ben hits the wall beside her.

“You’re a terrible shot,” he says, looking down at her.

“I am not.”

“Absolutely shocking.”

“You’re a cheater.”

“Are you calling me a cheater for winning this time? Or losing?”

“Why can’t it be both?”

“So I’m not allowed to win _or_ lose?”

“You’re not allowed to _cheat.”_

“I wasn’t…” Ben rubs the back of his head. “Has anyone ever told you you’re kind of belligerent?”

“You know, I liked it better when you were calling me incorrigible.”

“Well,” he smiles, “you’re definitely that.”

Leslie smiles back and lets herself sink against the wall. A comfortable silence settles over the two of them as a crisp autumn breeze dances with brittle leaves, rustling gently overhead. It’s sweet and sobering as she breathes it in and mischievous as it plays at her curls, brushing them against her cheeks and tickling her nose. She lets out a girlish giggle in the moonlight and for a moment she forgets the day. Forgets the media and the stress and Ben’s meltdown and her own and the possibility of the festival all going wrong. Forgets everything except being alive in the fall with the harvest ahead of her and the joy of a night spent in laughter with a friend.

She feels Ben slip his hands into his pockets and looks over. He’s resting his head against the bricks, and for the first time that day she thinks he looks kind of peaceful. His eyes are closed, his brow is relaxed and his lips are curved up, just a little. And perhaps it’s the beer talking, but Leslie has to admit that she was right this morning: married or not, her boss or not, he is very handsome.

Brushing the thought away, she lets her own eyes fall closed and appreciates the stillness of the night. A few moments pass before Ben speaks.

“Leslie?”

She looks up. Ben’s looking down at her, intent again like before. “Hm?” 

“Thank you.”

“What for?”

“Today.”

“Oh. Ben, it’s—”

“No, really,” Ben presses. “I mean it. I was a mess today, and you just… Look, you’re right. I don’t know what I’m doing. I mean, I do like the work. I do. But I also… I like what we’re doing with the Harvest Festival. I like the feeling of building something for once.”

“Well,” Leslie says after a moment, “you save towns, don’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean in what world does saving towns not count as building something?” Leslie says. She bites her lip and continues, “Look, I know I’ve been less than, um, less than on board with the whole budget cuts situation but I need you to know I respect it. I do. If it wasn’t for you we’d be seriously screwed, like I mean super _up-shit-creek_ screwed. And I know I fight you on basically everything but—”

“Leslie, I know—”

“—but I really do know that,” she finishes. “And I know that you’re going out of your way to help us when you really don’t need to and… and I wanted to say thank you for that.”

“Well,” Ben murmurs, bumping her shoulder, “you’re welcome.”

Leslie ducks her head and knocks him back. “Hey, I’m glad you came out tonight.”

“Me too.”

“I should head home,” she says reluctantly, stepping away from the wall, and craning her neck to look down the street for a taxi. “There’s that stallholder breakdown for tomorrow morning and—”

“Wait,” Ben says, catching her arm and she feels the warmth of his touch even through the thick felt of her coat. “Wait, Leslie.” She turns back towards him, looking up at him with half a question on parted lips. 

And in this moment, Leslie realises.

An epiphany comes to her gently, like an old friend that has been waiting until just the right moment to greet her. It is like finding a book lying open on the last page and feeling the paper blotted and warped under your fingers; seeing the ink, smudged in places, but dry nonetheless. It’s this sudden sense of _knowing,_ although you never wanted the knowledge, never went looking, never asked for it. She has the beginning and the end of a story and what’s left is to muddle out what happens in the middle, between the _now_ and the _then_ of it all.

She knows before he kisses her that this is what’s about to happen.

And she knows that it’s not going to be the last time. 

Now, in the knowing, time slows and twists and stretches out before her like ancient sap, and finally Leslie sees all the little moments that led her here.

The long summer days in City Hall and the longer nights spent there, just the two of them. The breakfasts and the lunches and the dinners and a thousand cups of coffee. Freddy Spaghetti. A lick of jealousy here, a stolen stare there. Pity for his wife giving way to something a lot like envy. The softness in his eyes, the lead in her stomach. Her protectiveness. Him confronting the police. Chicken soup and waffles and blowing a game of eight-ball pool and blowing an interview with the _Pawnee Journal_. The way he sees right through her.

If Leslie had been paying any attention she might have seen it on the horizon, looming closer by the minute.

She might have been able to stop it.

But it’s too late now. His hand comes up to cradle her jaw and she finds herself sinking into him, winding her hands into the lapels of his jacket and holding him close as if this were meant to happen all along. Ben’s other hand slips into her hair as she sighs into him, deepening the kiss, opening to him like a moonflower. 

The truth is that Leslie isn’t very good at romance. It never creeps up on her, never catches her off guard. She’s never been a natural, but Leslie tries and tries and tries—and it’s the trying that undoes her, more often than not.

And that’s the strange thing about this, the thing she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t want this at all. Hasn’t given it an ounce of thought or a moment’s effort. In fact, every rational part of Leslie is screaming that she couldn’t be making a worse mistake.

Everything that was true before is still true now. He is her colleague. In fact, he is technically her boss. It’s impossible for Leslie to forget he is very much married. But there’s just something about Ben. An arcane gravity, a primal lure that draws her to him, unwanted and unasked for and entirely unbidden and—although everything in her is pounding with adrenaline, screaming for her to fight or to flee or to do something, god, _anything_ but this—Leslie still goes to him so willingly.

It could be seconds or minutes or hours before they break apart. She couldn’t tell you.

Leslie gasps for breath, clasps her flaming cheeks and stares up at Ben with wide eyes. His breath is ragged and he looks half scared, half wild, searching her desperately by the moonlight. Her fingers tighten on his coat and she licks her lips, dropping her gaze to his mouth. His lips are a little chapped, though whether from the dry air or from the kissing Leslie couldn’t say. She swallows and meets his eye again.

She opens her mouth to murmur _‘uh oh,’_ to voice some kind of fear about what they’re doing, but Ben’s lips return to hers and one hand tightens in her hair as he takes her by the waist, pulling her close, and Leslie is lost. Her hands slide from his coat into his hair and she sighs into his mouth as he holds her to him, cradling her firmly. 

And as his fingers dip beneath her shirt and feather across the curve of her waist, as the cool metal of his wedding band sends a shiver up her spine, something cruel and honest inside of Leslie whispers that maybe—just maybe—she isn’t so different from Joan Callamezzo, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

Ben met Rachel when he was twenty-eight years old.

She wasn't anything special, not at first. Just a face that kept cropping up, making her way back to him with run-ins on the street, in line for coffee, getting milk at the grocery store. At the time, it sort of felt like fate.

He was still an auditor for the state, in between jobs in Indianapolis, and she was a constant. When it turned out she lived only a minute away from his apartment, it was hard not to turn to her. And accidental meetings became something more—bringing each other coffee, experimenting with new restaurants, talking long into the night about whether _Star Wars_ or _Star Trek_ was better.

He kissed her for the first time in the same place they met—the grocery store. They had found each other there by accident again, laughing over the coincidence. She was ranting about _milk,_ of all things, and the ethical consumption of it. If it was better to drink almond milk or soy milk, how oat milk tasted the best of them all, but sometimes she really couldn't resist the pull of good old cow’s milk. Ben stopped listening, at one point, just watching her as she spoke, and it struck him so suddenly that he liked her. It hit him all at once, in a flash, that he wanted Rachel just like this. In sweats and sandals, her hair in a disastrous bun on top of her head, her bangs swept aside. An old t-shirt on that was much too big for her, ranting about milk to a state auditor in a dirty little grocery store.

So he kissed her. 

She was so shocked by it that she dropped the carton of oat milk she was holding right into her cart, joking only a minute later that it seemed her choice was made for her. He drove to her house right after that and helped her put away her groceries, after which she showed her appreciation by thanking him greatly in her bedroom. Only a week later and she was his girlfriend.

He was thirty years old when he married Rachel.

She walked down the aisle in the biggest ballroom gown she could find, insisting that it was the one day she had the complete right to look and feel exactly like a princess, so she might as well go all the way. There were flowers in her hair, white against a deep brunette, and she was so ecstatic to be saying her vows that she giggled in the middle of them. He missed her mouth when he went to kiss her because she kept swaying on her feet, and it almost felt like an embarrassing disaster, except for when she grabbed his hand for their first dance and called him _her husband_ for the first time.

Ben supposed he never had any reason _not_ to be happy. He was fine, just where he was. He continued on as a state auditor, traveling around Indiana, and she stayed put in Indianapolis as an art teacher. They both knew it would be rough, the amount of long distance they would have to face, but they would get through it. They had no reason not to believe they could get through it.

So Ben went through the motions. Nothing ever changed. For the first two years, it was almost hell, and Ben found himself using any excuse possible to head back home to her in Indy. There was one particularly bad town that resulted in one of his worst breakdowns, and maybe he should've known that everything would just be stagnant from there.

“Ben?” she called out as he opened the door, having not even warned her he was on his way. “Oh my god, baby, what's wrong with you?”

He was a mess, he supposed. He was fighting the tears in his eyes, trying to forget the words they said. Trying to forget the newspaper articles they dug up, slammed down on his desk, laughter and pointed fingers and being told that he couldn't be taken seriously with a history like _that._ Whispers of _Ice Clown_ drifting through his head, over and over again until it was screaming at him that he couldn't do anything, that they were right, that at the end of the day he was a failure, and there was no use pretending he was ever anything but.

“Uh,” he choked up, as Rachel wrapped herself around his bicep and tugged him to the couch. “You… you remember Ice Town, right?”

Her eyes darkened, and she stiffened, just slightly, a sign of uncomfortableness that shouldn't have been noticeable, but he just knew. “Oh,” she mouthed. “It's about… that old mayor stuff?” She knew exactly how he felt about it. He told her everything a year into dating her, explained that it was a sort of traumatic past experience, a hell of a town he couldn't think about again, and he supposed she took it with stride. She understood. Maybe even a little too well. “Listen… we don't… we don't have to talk about it, if you don't want to. We can do something else.”

She was giving him an out. She didn't know what to say any more than he did.

“I don't want to talk about it,” he said, and a little piece of his heart closed itself off that day.

It became a little easier to do long distance. Rachel was still his wife, and he loved her, but he didn't _miss_ her quite the same way he used to. That little spark that was lit in him the first time he kissed her had long since died, and Ben Wyatt was the same man he had always been. Hard. Cold. Bitter, with a past he couldn't speak about. Someone who slashed open budgets without a care in the world for who it would hurt, someone who fired government employees with families and still managed to sleep soundly at night. He never really _thought,_ or _felt,_ or did anything at all except for what he was supposed to do.

Until Pawnee.

***

Leslie’s house is a mess.

She invites him in with shaky caution, a sense of vulnerability that's rare on her. Her eyes are soft, wide as they look up at him, and he seems incapable of letting go of her. When her front door locks shut, it feels like every chance to turn around and erase this is gone. He's already in too deep.

“I'm sorry,” she whispers, even though there's no one around to hear them, “about the mess.”

“Don't apologize,” he tells her, and his hand comes to rest on her face, his thumb stroking along her jaw. “I don't mind.”

She warms up under his touch, backing up and helping him navigate through her living room. Soft kisses are exchanged as they wander up the stairs, as if they have all the time in the world, as if nothing is wrong or amiss at all. As if there's nothing else they're supposed to be doing, nobody else they’re supposed to be with. Their kisses are gentle and hungry and they seek more, more, more, never quite satisfied until their breathing grows labored against Leslie’s bedroom door.

“Ben,” she gasps, as he presses her against her door, his lips seeking out her throat. “Ben, what are we doing?”

“Don't,” he hisses into her skin, gripping her tighter. “We don't need to say anything about it. Not tonight.”

“We shouldn't be doing this. What about your—”

 _“Please,”_ he begs her, because he can't stand to hear her say it out loud. He can't stand to listen to _‘What about your wife?’_ Any reminder will tear him apart, rip him right open, launch him into self-destruction and guilt so bone deep that he won't even recognize himself at the end of it. 

It's wrong. He knows everything about this is wrong. It's likely the worst thing he's ever done in his life, including bankrupting his town, because at least Partridge was never something he looked in the eye and claimed to love. No, this is _betrayal,_ plain and simple, right at its core. 

And somehow it's not enough to stop him.

“Leslie,” he rasps, and he reaches behind her to grab the doorknob, stumbling with her into her bedroom. It's dimly lit, and something surprisingly small, books and binders stacked on her desk and in the corners, leaving only the bed untouched, her sheets a light purple that suits her well. Everything smells like her, to the point that it's overwhelming. “Look at me.”

She does, lifting her head up with the help of his finger at her chin. He surveys her, and the way she swallows hard, trying to hide her nerves. The slight shaking of her palms, the clench of her jaw, how messy her hair has gotten since he first kissed her outside the bar. Ben smooths her hair out of her face, cupping her at the back of her neck, dragging her in closer to him until their chests are pressed together. 

“We don't have to talk about this tonight,” he tells her, for his benefit as much as hers. It's his easy cop-out, the quickest way out of a hard conversation, to say he doesn't want to have one. “This… this can just be for tonight, if you want.”

Her breath catches, and her fist curls into his untucked shirt. “What do you want?”

There's only one answer. There's only ever really been one answer. “All of you.” 

***

He can't say why he does it, only that it feels right.

It's the sickest thing he's done, but it feels _good._ Something inside him just seems to snap, the dam collapsing, completely flooding, and he can't seem to control himself any longer. Leslie tastes like strawberries and whipped cream and though Ben has never had a sweet tooth, suddenly he can't get enough.

Maybe it's because Rachel smells like fresh linen and tastes like spearmint. Maybe it's because her sheets are eggshell white and she's always kept her room spotless. Or maybe because she thinks chocolate is too sweet, takes her coffee with only a splash of milk, insists on sleeping eight hours every night. 

Maybe it's because Rachel doesn't push him, and never encourages him to _feel._ Because when he stepped out to call her and tell her about his Ice Town breakdown on live television, she only winced and asked him if he needed a distraction.

Maybe it's because Leslie Knope is the only person in this world who’s made him feel like his words mean something.

But something about it just makes sense.

***

As hesitant as she was, making sure they both knew what they were doing, Leslie more than meets his enthusiasm in bed.

He pushes her into the mattress just to become overwhelmed with the scent of her, and she kisses him so fiercely that his lips are forced to part, swallowing each other’s moans. He loses all thought, any guilt or unease flying out the window, until the world is nothing but the feeling of her skin as he exposes every inch of it.

Ben rids her of her clothing, dragging his palm over her body, as if committing the feel of her to memory. If it's their last time like this, he wants to remember it. He wants to keep this moment locked up in a box in the back of his head to open only when he's alone, just so he can feel something, just to remind himself what it's like to be so present, to be so _alive._

His hand slips between her legs and her fingers tug at his hair, rip away his tie and his shirt, nails tracing gently along his skin, gripping his bicep, clawing at his spine. Her breath is hot, gasping under him, squeezing her eyes shut as the cool metal of his wedding band presses itself to her breast.

He pants her name like a mantra as he enters her, any sense of _soft_ or _slow_ long since forgotten in favor of something primal, desperate, completely and totally uncontrollable. He forgets everything _but_ her name and the feeling of her pushing closer, deeper, throwing him over the edge in a way that makes his ears ring and his brain shut off.

 _“You’re beautiful,”_ he whispers into her ear as they start to drift to sleep, an arm slung around her waist. _“Beautiful. So beautiful.”_

***

She talks in her sleep.

He stays up just to listen to her, to understand her. It's nonsense, really, words strung together that don't follow any coherent line of thought, but somehow it makes sense to Ben.

Maybe it's because she talks government, politics, dreams and ambitions and a world where everything is okay, where there’s hope to cling to.

Or maybe it's just because she whispers his name as she cuddles closer to him, mumbling against his skin.

Either way, the words comfort him.

***

There's a deep ache in his body when he finally wakes up, and for a moment, he forgets where he is.

He's in a bed much more comfortable than his one at the Super Suites, in a room with better air conditioning. He reaches his arm out as if to feel… _something,_ any sort of confirmation on what took place last night, just to be met with cold sheets and an empty space.

In the cold light of day, sunlight streaming through pale purple curtains, Ben realizes just what he's done.

And he wishes— _god, he wishes—_ that he could say it was a mistake, a momentary lapse of judgement, but he knows deep down it's not true. He wasn't even _drunk,_ at least not enough to be any kind of excuse. No, he was perfectly awake and alive and sober when he took her home and took her to bed, whispering her name all night into her skin, pressed to her lips, in between her legs. God, she even _asked him_ if he was sure, asked him what he wanted, and what did he say?

_All of you._

The panic hits him, right in his chest, the ache so intense that he has to grab at his heart and immediately sit up, doubling over in bed. He's only in his boxers and that alone is just a testament to what he's done, to what he can never, _ever_ take back, as long as he lives. Before, it was just feelings. Just the slightest of crushes, someone he could push back and ignore without feeling _too_ much guilt because _at least he didn't do anything._

But this… this will haunt him. All his life, years down the road, all of his thoughts and plans and _what-ifs._ He’ll never be able to scrub this off his skin and walk away from it, he can never go back in time. Even if no one ever finds out, he'll _know._ He’ll know, and it'll live with him forever.

The panic only worsens when he reaches for his phone on the nightstand, the screen lit up with missed calls from Rachel. Texts asking if he’s alright, if he's home, asking him to call her as soon as possible.

He doesn't know how he'll face her. Doesn't even know what to say to her. But Leslie isn't here right now, and it's still early, so he’s left just praying he can get a word out without breaking down and ruining everything.

“Rach?” he chokes out as soon as she answers the phone. “Hey, I am so—”

“Oh my god, _Ben,”_ she gasps, the immediate relief evident in her voice. “I was worried sick about you, when you weren't there to call me just before bed, and you never even texted, oh my god—”

“I know, I know, I'm so sorry—”

“What happened, babe? You just called me to tell me about your television breakdown, and then I didn't hear from you again until just now, you can see how worried I would be, right?” She almost sounds close to tears, completely working herself up, and it strikes Ben that Rachel _cares._ She really and truly cares, and she tries to do right by him, every single day. 

Maybe it's Ben that's never cared enough.

“I know,” he repeats, pressing his palm firmly against his chest as if it'll still his racing heart. “I should've called you. I know I should have. And I'm sorry.”

“What happened?” she asks again, much slower this time. “I kept calling you, I thought you were really hurt about what happened, and the… and the _Ice Town_ thing.” She whispers it, as if someone will hear, as if someone might find out if she says it any louder. “God, I was scared that I might've upset you somehow…”

“You didn't upset me, Rach.” As he’s saying it, the bedroom door slowly creeps open, as perfectly quiet as can be, one blue eye and a wisp of blonde hair peeking out from behind it. Ben quickly presses a finger to his lips in a gesture of silence, but she already seems to understand, nodding once and tiptoeing into her room.

Leslie is only wearing a t-shirt and _very_ short pajama shorts. He can't help but look at her, even with his wife's voice in his ear. She stands with her arms crossed over her chest, hugging herself, looking between him and the floor as if patiently waiting for him to finish his phone conversation so she can speak to him next. It's oh, so distracting, as well as absolutely terrifying.

Ben takes a deep breath and tears his eyes away from her in favor of staring at his hand instead. “You definitely didn't upset me,” he tells Rachel again, and he can't help but notice his voice is that much shakier. “I just got distracted, that's all. It was… it was a rough night.”

“Because of the television disaster?”

“Yeah,” he rasps, choking the word down. “Because of that. It was just… it was embarrassing, and… and we’re really trying to make this Harvest Festival work, you know? And I felt like I ruined it all.”

“Oh, babe,” she sighs. “I can tell this is really important to you. I'm sure you didn't ruin it all.”

“Maybe not, because I was up all night last night just trying to find a way to fix it,” he lies. “Making calls, talking to the right people, lots of damage control.”

“And you think it worked?”

“God, I… I really hope it did. I can't ruin… this. I can’t ruin any of it. And I thought I wouldn't be able to erase it all, but…”

“I get it,” she says, and he can hear her smile. “Hey. As much as I miss you and your face, I'm really glad you're finding a place through Pawnee right now. You've seemed… almost happier. A little more expressive. I like it.”

“Yeah,” Ben chokes, his eyes lifting to meet Leslie’s. “I really like it, too.”

***

“I take it you want to go?”

It's the first thing Leslie asks him after he gets off the phone with Rachel, after a lengthy silence involving the both of them staring between each other and the floor. But she isn't looking away now, not even close. If anything, her eyes are pleading with him.

“Leslie…” he starts, and it occurs to him then that he doesn't know how to continue. He's only just pulled on a shirt and pulled himself out of her bed, doing up his buttons, trying to make a decision without any preparation time at all. “I… I feel like I need to apologize.”

“Why would you apologize?”

“I don't know,” he admits. “For kissing you?”

She shakes her head vehemently, her hair brushing her shoulders. “No. No, you don't get to say that. You don't get to apologize for that. This… all of last night, that was on both of us. I kissed you, too. I didn't stop it.”

“Why didn't you? Why didn't you stop me?”

“I—” she freezes in her tracks, her mouth hanging open, as if completely rethinking what she was about to say. But it comes back to her, very slowly, and she drops her arms, suddenly looking much, much smaller. “Because I wanted it.”

_She wanted it._

It's something that, reasonably, Ben already knows, but it's different to hear it come directly from her mouth even after the fact. It's like confirmation, somehow, her way of saying _it's not just you,_ but it's also so, so dangerous. It's a very treacherous slope they're sliding down, and if they're not careful, they'll never be able to stop.

“But also,” she adds, with a rush of air, “we shouldn't have done that.”

“No,” Ben agrees, “we shouldn't have.”

“So I understand if it's… if you want to go. If you want to forget this ever happened—”

“Leslie,” he stops her. “You understand what needs to happen, right? No matter what, we can't… we can't tell anyone.”

“I know.”

“Not just… not just because I'm married. Because of Rachel. But I'm also directly in charge of your budget right now, overseeing this Harvest Festival project. I've been helping out because it means a lot to me, and you know if it fails, I really will have to eliminate—”

 _“Eliminate the parks department._ I know. But that won't happen, because—”

“It doesn't matter what will or won't happen.” He's standing in front of her now, where she has to tilt her head to look all the way up at him, keeping eye contact through it all. There's something there, in the way she looks at him, something that exposes far more than her words do. He’s sure she sees the same in him. “All that matters is what already happened.”

“What already happened,” she whispers, repeating him. “Not just… not just when I proposed the Harvest Festival. But also when we…”

“Last night,” he nods. “This is… this is forbidden on so many levels, Leslie. Nothing in the world wants this to happen between us. It was never even supposed to happen, but it did.”

Her jaw clenches, and he can tell he hit a nerve there. It hurts her in a way that she tries to hide, and he wishes more than anything he could take it back, but he doesn't know what else to do. He's completely out of options.

“So, last night,” she mumbles. “When you said it could only be for tonight. Is that what you want for us?”

_I said I wanted all of you, but I can't have you. Not like this, anything but like this._

“I just think maybe it's for the best,” he tells her. To her credit, she doesn't even break eye contact. “If we stop now, it’ll be easiest to… walk away, don't you think? Like it never even happened.”

“Okay.” She takes a step back, and only now does she tear her eyes away from him, looking around her room as if searching for something, anything, to help her keep it together. But Leslie isn't a fool, maybe not quite so much like Ben is—she understands it's the best course of action. They can always stop. It’ll stop. It can't happen again.

It was a mistake. 

“Okay,” Leslie repeats, and she's stronger this time. “Okay. Then I'll see you at work.”

***

He would never admit it to Leslie, but a part of him is lying. Over and over again he lies, to her, to his wife, even to himself. It's become so easy, a habit he can't break, something so second nature that everyday it's a little easier to make himself believe something that just isn't true.

He doesn't want to lose her. He doesn't want it to end. He doesn't want _‘just for tonight’_ and he doesn't want _‘we’ll never talk about this again.’_ He wants tomorrows and early mornings and strawberries and whipped cream, pale purple sheets and a too-messy house and color coded binders stacked in every corner. He even wants the birdhouses.

He can't have it. He knows he can't have it. And that drives him farther and farther away from her, pushing her away, refusing to look back when he leaves her house with his hood up and head down.

And that's when the guilt sinks in, when the lies expose themselves to him, plain as day, smacking him in the face with the reality of it all.

And the funny thing is, Ben does regret it.

But maybe only because he doesn't actually regret it at all.

*****

Leslie looks pointedly at the floor as he brushes past her, collecting his trousers and his shoes and socks. He finishes dressing quickly and except for the ruffle in his hair, the imprint of the pillow still pressed into his puffy cheek, he looks exactly as he did before any of this happened.

Before things got so out of control.

_(How did things get so out of control?)_

Leslie digs her toes into the shag rug and looks herself over, feeling even more incredibly exposed in her t-shirt and pyjama shorts now that Ben is fully clothed. He picks his phone back up from her nightstand, pats his pockets down for his wallet and keys. Closes his eyes and nods once as if to assure himself that yes, that’s everything, he has all his effects, he’s put himself back together again. He’s even re-tying his tie, pulling on his windbreaker. He’s precisely the man he was yesterday—married, her colleague, technically her boss—and she’s small and exposed with nowhere to hide.

Because Leslie has done something very, very stupid.

She has told him the truth.

_That she wanted it._

And that’s the thing she’s still stuck on. Somehow she hadn’t even known until last night, until the course was charted, until it was too late. But it had been there all along, hadn’t it? She hadn’t had to will it to life, hadn’t gone looking. She’d given it neither thought nor prayer, but the moment it hit her she just _knew._

She knew it was going to happen. That there’s something about this. That this is more than just a fleeting crush or a one-off dalliance. It’s something else, something inescapable.

Except… Except that it isn’t.

She’d gotten that part wrong. Something’s gone terribly awry here, somehow, and she’s feeling so very foolish for it.

Leslie’s gone all in with an open hand and Ben has folded, thrown his cards down, shoved the chips back across the table when she’d have given it all so freely. And in the cold light of day, as he’s saying things like ‘I can’t ruin this’ and ‘it’s for the best’ and ‘I feel like I need to apologise’ _(as if Leslie isn’t at least halfway responsible, as if she doesn’t have free will here),_ it’s a little humiliating how willing she was to give it up.

Ben has put himself back together again and Leslie might as well be naked.

She avoids his gaze as he mutters a half-hearted goodbye and another assurance about seeing her at work like he’s saying he’ll see her on death row and she trails miserably after him as he sees himself out of her house. 

She watches from the window as he pulls the hood out of the collar of his windbreaker, tugging it over his head as he crosses her lawn.

He opens the gate, hood up, eyes down. Lets himself out and vanishes from sight behind her neighbour’s hedge.

And then he’s gone. 

Leslie stares at her empty yard, at the damp ochre leaves and the dewy grass and the flattened trail that betrays the fact that someone has left Leslie’s house this morning, evidence she didn’t make it all up. That he was here and now he’s not.

She presses her forehead against the glass and closes her eyes.

She’s being stupid. She has no idea why she’s taking any of this so personally. Of course he had to leave. He can hardly ride to work with her, unshowered and in yesterday’s clothes. It’s not a slight. Not a snub. It’s not possible for it to be those things, because they’re in agreement here. Because what happened last night? It was a mistake. They’ve admitted that.

And Leslie isn’t stupid.

She understands the situation. Understands the intoxicating rush of kissing someone you shouldn’t under the light of a pale, full moon. The heady languor of a few too many beers, the magnetism of skin on skin that’s a lot about wanting and being wanted and only a little about the finer details like ‘who’ or ‘why’ or ‘tomorrow’.

And she understands what happens next.

Nothing.

It’s the only acceptable option. There’s too much at risk. Her job. His job. The Harvest Festival. The parks department, her friends.

So this? This murky, treacherous gravity between them? This _wanting_ that’s dogged her since the moment he grabbed her arm last night? It’s got to go.

She can stop. Just say no. Simply refuse to let it be a problem. He’s just a colleague who happens to be a friend.

That’s it. Nothing more.

Leslie opens her eyes and looks out at her yard again through foggy glass. Tells herself she sees nothing more than flat wet grass and scattered leaves and a lemon tree, repeats it over and over like a mantra until she’s halfway to believing herself.

She turns from the window and wanders absently back to the kitchen where she sinks down at the dining table. Looks from the two empty mugs on the table to the pot of coffee sitting cold on the stove and tries not to cry.

***

City Hall is quiet. It’s still early when Leslie pulls into the empty carpark and she’s grateful for the silence that envelops her as she walks slowly through the halls, trailing her fingers fondly over the cracked paint of the murals, the sound of her heels against the polished wooden floor booming into echoes in her wake.

Her head has started to pound and she’s running on empty without waffles or even so much as a real cup of coffee, but it doesn’t matter. Getting a few precious hours alone in City Hall before the day begins is more important than her usual JJ’s stop.

She’d spent too long battling with more makeup than she’d usually bother with, trying to mask her hungover dullness with a little shimmer and a lot of mascara. Shame had begun to brew in her stomach and bubble up through her, leaving her weak and trembling, and it had taken her six attempts before she managed to coat her eyelashes and not the darkened skin under her eyes.

She’d felt out of place in her house, like a trespasser in her own bedroom, the last bystander ogling after a disaster. She’d needed the comfort of her office and the sense of purpose she feels most strongly when she’s here, in this building, surrounded by so much wonderful work yet to be done. 

The hallways are cool and dark and comforting, but when she reaches the parks department Leslie finds the lights already on.

Like the rest of City Hall, it’s silent—except for the soft buzz of the fluorescents and the clicking of Jerry’s computer, left on overnight, as one of the drives whirs.

“Ron?” she calls, although she knows Ron wouldn’t be caught dead at work a minute before nine o’clock unless Leslie had begged him. She finds his office empty, of course, peering through the window as she shrugs her purse from her shoulder and drops it on the table in the middle of the room and searches the space.

There’s no one there, no one at all.

Nothing but a hot cup of coffee on her desk—caramel latte, extra whip—still steaming as she discovers it. 

It’s a small, silent gesture that says, ‘It’s alright.’ Says, ‘It’s going to be okay.’

She curls her hands around the warm paper cup and, for the first time this morning, Leslie smiles.

***

The reassurance doesn’t last long.

As the office fills and yesterday’s anxious whispers about have grown into loud, gleeful laughter coursing through the halls. All anyone wants to talk about is Ben Wyatt’s miraculous television appearance.

And no one’s laughing at him. Everyone is laughing at Joan Callamezzo, bursting with delighted outrage about her affair, trading theories and stories about the gym teacher and Joan’s former producer and her personal trainer and whatever happened to any of their husbands.

“Girl got some nerve coming after skinny legs McGee for that kid mayor stuff when she has wrecked not one, but _several_ homes herself. She’s a grown ass woman!”

“And between you and me,” Tom says, kicking his feet back on his desk as he talks to Donna on speakerphone, “she has _not_ reformed. She could barely keep her hands off ya boy, and that’s when I was married to Wendy.”

“Ohhhhh!” Donna calls, eyes widening as she flips the page of a lift-out magazine. “Tommy’s got juice!”

“Tom,” Leslie mutters through clenched teeth, head in her hands as she stares at one of Ben’s labyrinthine spreadsheets. The caffeine helped, but only a little. “I don’t care if you’re not going to work, but if you want to talk to Donna could you at least do it at her desk?”

There’s no answer, just a dramatic sigh and the sound of plastic wheels scraping on the floor as Tom gets to his feet.

“Holy shit!” Leslie hears Donna’s voice across the office and through the speakerphone before Tom ends the call. “Have you seen page six of the Journal?”

“Ugh, _Donna._ You know I don’t read newspapers. The ink gets on my fingies. It messes up my whole skincare routine.” 

“You gotta see this. It is _nasty.”_

And Leslie remembers: Shauna Malwae-Tweep and yesterday’s trainwreck of an interview. She springs to her feet, ignoring the thud of her head. “The Pawnee Journal? What is it?”

Tom beats her there, running through the office at the promise of some new spectacle, eyes bright and mouth hanging open like an eager puppy. “Oh _damn!_ Now that’s _dirt!”_

“What is it?” Leslie shoves Tom aside and hunches over the paper, frantically scanning it for Shauna’s article. “What’s dirt?”

Shauna has not one article on page six, but two. There’s one headline half-page piece on the Harvest Festival, glowing and entirely innocuous, and a smaller three-inch piece about a hair salon closing that Tom and Donna are bug-eyed over.

Nothing about Ben Wyatt or Leslie Knope at all.

“Oh,” she murmurs to herself, exhaling long and slow, finally freeing herself of the venomous tension that had made itself at home in the slope of her shoulders and the plane of her back yesterday morning and hadn’t left her for a moment. Not even under a hot shower. _(Not even in bed.)_ “Wait, what is it? I don’t understand.”

“Shauna used to go out with the hairdresser, but looks like he packed up shop not long ago. Guess who else—”

“I get it,” Leslie snaps, a little too irritably.

“Come on, Leslie,” Donna says, “you don’t think this is a little funny? She tried to ‘gotcha’ ya boy—”

Leslie flinches, scowling. “He’s _not—”_

“—but he got her. That’s karma.”

“It’s hilarious! She must be miserable!” Tom says gleefully. Then he pauses for a moment, laughter dying on his lips as he considers something and a new light sparks behind his eyes. “And on that note,” he says with a grin, clicking his fingers, “Tommy’s gotta bounce.”

“What do you mean, bounce? We have a meeting—”

“Yeah, nerd stuff. Look, I gotta make a stop in Eagleton real quick.”

_“Eagle—”_

“Don’t stress, booboo, I’ll be back in…” Tom stops and glances at the clock, shrugging. “Well, I’ll be back.”

Leslie tries to protest, but Tom’s already out the door. She turns to Donna with her hands in the air, staring helplessly. “Wha...”

“Joan likes to misery shop.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“Unbelievable! Of all the times to go gallivanting off—”

“What’s going on with you, Knope?” Donna interrupts.

“What do you mean, what’s going on with me? I’m fine! Fantastic! You know, better than—”

“I mean why aren’t you laughing about Joan’s parade of boy toy affairs? Tommy’s right. It is kind of hilarious.”

“Well, maybe I just don’t think it’s funny to gloat and gossip when we have a festival to work on,” Leslie says, crossing her arms defensively. “I mean, is this really Pawnee? We’re really just going to—to turn on one of our own and expose their private, personal affairs to _laugh_ at?”

She scowls as Donna barely suppresses a guffaw. “Girl, she announced it to the world on live TV. Ain’t private after that. Anyway, you hate Joan. And it _is_ funny as hell.”

“She’s still from Pawnee. You know, our town? We’re trying to fix Pawnee, remember? That’s the whole point of the festival. Can’t we just focus on doing something good for—”

Donna flips the newspaper shut. “Front page, continued on page three, Shauna’s thing on page six _and_ a lift-out informational centrefold. All Harvest Festival. What more do you want?”

Leslie grabs the newspaper from the desk and stares at the front cover. “Wait, really?”

“Damn, you so hungover you couldn’t read the news?”

“No,” Leslie huffs, leafing through the paper. She just _forgot_ to read the news—which isn’t like her at all, she realises, cursing inwardly as she cradles her head in one hand. 

“Go! Take it. Get back in your office. I’ve got some tweeting to catch up on.”

***

Hours pass and the meeting draws closer, leaving Leslie with no sign of Tom and a growing sense of dread that accompanies the knowledge that she’s about to have to face Ben again. A cup of coffee is a nice gesture, but it doesn’t mean much. Not in the wake of what they’ve done.

She looks at her calendar and prays she’ll have an excuse to leave the office after their meeting and when she doesn’t have another appointment she actually asks Jerry if he’d mind if she went to refill the hummingbird feeders in the parks.

Tom returns just in time for the festival coordinating committee meeting, touting several crisp paper shopping bags and a fresh manicure. 

Leslie glowers at him from across their office. “Oh, you made it back.”

“Of course I made it. And I even got you a little pres-pres.” Tom dips his hand into one of the bags and pulls out a small, black box. It’s heavier than it looks and when Leslie opens it she’s greeted by a tiny crystal owl. “You’re welcome, boo. Courtesy of Joanie’s platinum.”

“Tom…” She can’t exactly reproach him for it; really it’s quite thoughtful, in a _Tom-ish_ kind of way. Leslie sighs, smiles, and takes the owl out of its box. “Thanks,” she says, placing it on her desk next to another ceramic owl with a sad-looking succulent growing out of its head. She picks up her padfolio and the binders she’s prepared for the meeting and drags Tom behind her into the conference room.

Ben isn’t there yet. He doesn’t arrive until everyone else is seated, and when he walks in the door Leslie feels her face catch fire. She drops her eyes pointedly to the papers in front of her—mercifully, Tom _has_ actually prepared a comparative report on media saturation, so they have something to talk about other than Leslie’s misguided attempts at understanding search word metrics and social media trends. Like Leslie, Ben keeps his eyes down. He ignores April’s comment on his suit _(really, it is awful)_ and looks up only at whoever is speaking. Leslie, for once, tries to stay silent.

“Long story short,” Tom says, hands spread wide and that signature grin on his face, “we totally nailed it. Banger after banger after banger. Not a single miss! It’s all Harvest Festival, and if it’s not Harvest Festival it’s Joan, but the point is: it ain’t this guy.” Tom snaps his fingers and points at Ben. “Yesterday we were on—”

“Thirty-four point two percent.” _(Ben can’t seem to help himself.)_

“Yeah, thanks nerd. Yesterday we were under forty percent and _today_ we’re in the mid-seventies. That’s what I call a Tommy triumph.”

“It was all Leslie, really,” Ben murmurs. It’s almost inaudible, but Leslie doesn’t miss it. Her heart skips and swells and then just as quickly sinks as she remembers, again, what’s between them now. She can’t quite suppress the twitch in her face as she rests her cheek on her palm and drops her eyes back to her paperwork.

“You can thank me,” Tom continues, oblivious to Ben’s comment, to Leslie’s wince and the subsequent twitch of Ron’s mustache, “in gift vouchers for Zen Spa and Beauty. Or, in Sideboob _._ That’s Dennis Feinstein’s new fragrance.”

“We will thank you in the salary that’s paid to you by way of theft from honest, hardworking Americans,” Ron says.

Leslie rolls her eyes and adds, “We will thank you by buying _everyone_ several drinks at the Snakehole Lounge after the festival wraps up. Amazing work, Tom. And everybody. I’ve got to admit, it was touch and go for a while. But like I always say, if you stay positive and kick ass, then… well, then you kick ass,” she finishes lamely.

“Great speech,” Tom says sarcastically. “We done?”

“Let’s just go over tasks for the rest of the week.”

It doesn’t take awfully long to run through everything that still needs to be done. They still need to confirm final stall locations, revise the media strategy, organise the merchandise, finish recruiting volunteers and plenty more, but everyone is giddy with the momentum leading up to launch day and even April takes on extra responsibility without complaint.

“We’re done,” Leslie says, an hour later, with no small amount of relief. She gets to her feet quickly and starts swiping everyone’s meeting papers from across the desk, forsaking precision for speed until she has an unruly pile in front of her that she then has to straighten before she can jam it all back into her binders.

The room clears while she works until the only people left are Ron, watching her sharply, and Ben, fiddling with his tie. She’s determined not to finish until Ben has left the room so she doesn’t have to speak to him. Leslie steals a quick glance and sees him pinching the bridge of his nose. She drops a stack of papers and curses under her breath as she has to straighten them again.

Leslie jams the stack into her binder just as Ben comes up behind her. She jumps. 

“Sorry,” he says, looking really remorseful, and Leslie gathers he’s saying sorry for imposing conversation on her more than surprising her. “Do you have a second?”

Leslie pauses. “Oh,” she says, drumming her fingers against her palm. There’s not much hope for escape. Not with Ron watching. “Um, yeah. Yeah, sure, I have a second. Lots of seconds. I have like, five minutes.”

“Sure. Uh, it’s just some vendor stuff.” Ben looks down at his notes. “Turns out Sweetums want more for the cotton candy machines than we have room for after that ride inspection blowout.” Leslie frowns and rubs her head. “And Michael Stone called back. The horse guy? He said they can only give us…” Ben squints down at the paper, “Coconut. I’m assuming Coconut is an animal.”

“Huh?” Leslie says, tucking her hair behind her ear and shoving papers into her padfolio, leaning over the table as she slaps it closed and drags it towards her. She’s stalling for time as Ben repeats himself. None of this is ideal. What kind of festival doesn’t have something as simple as _cotton candy?_ But it’s clear this isn’t something she can rectify without reworking the budget, and to rework the budget she needs Ben. She doesn’t even let herself think about Michael Stone, not for even a second. Because if she thinks about not being able to get Li’l Sebastian she is pretty sure she’s really going to cry. And she can’t do it. She can’t talk to Ben today and she definitely can’t lose her mind in front of him and she _just needs to get out of here._ She swipes her hand against her forehead and gives Ben the blankest look she can muster. “Okay,” she says. “That’s fine.”

He frowns. “Wait, really? I thought you wanted the other horse. You’re okay with that?”

“Absolutely!” Leslie smiles. “It’s fine. It’s perfect.” She picks up her padfolio and hugs it to her chest. “Book Coconut. Thanks for all your help Ben. Really. You’re a lifesaver.” Leslie gives him and Ron a little nod and clears her throat. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, there are a great number of birds who require their daily sustenance and it is incumbent on me, now, to… to provide the, um… to provide…”

“Food,” Ron supplies.

“Yes. Exactly. Well, then. Good day.” 

She takes a step backwards towards the door, turns, and leaves Ben standing in the conference room. He looks at Ron, but Ron only stares after Leslie with a furrowed brow and pensive twitch of his mustache.

***

Leslie feeds the birds. The fresh air eases her hangover and she enjoys the satisfaction that comes from working with your hands, doing something in service of another living being _(even if all she’s doing, really, is pouring honeyed slop into plastic buckets)_. She breathes deeply and cries a little and considers herself lucky that things today haven’t been worse. They could have been so much worse.

She makes her way back to City Hall feeling, if not relief, then at least some kind of resignation about the whole thing—but her moment of half-formed peace lasts all of thirty seconds.

“KNOPE!” Ron bellows, the moment he sees her walk past his window. “MY OFFICE!”

Ron’s still when Leslie enters. He watches her as she sits down, eyeing her as she fidgets. “I am going to say three things.”

“Ron—”

“And then, once I am done, you can say whatever it is you want to say.”

Leslie grimaces. “Okay.”

“One. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so complacent about missing out on sugar.” He raises an eyebrow pointedly. “ _Two._ It was my understanding that you, like any right-minded citizen, would give your right arm to see Li’l Sebastian, and _three._ Filling the bird feeders is Jerry’s job. Jerry has been trying to file permits for you,” Ron scowls. “It has been a disaster.”

“Ron,” Leslie starts again, but he cuts her off with the wave of a hand.

“I don’t know what personal issues you might be having, and nor do I want to.” Leslie studies the shorn-off shotgun on his desk. “I’ve seen you go to war with the city manager’s office over horse shit, Leslie. This is your Harvest Festival. You are going to pull yourself together.”

“That was more than three things,” Leslie says mulishly. Ron stares her down and she drops her face into her hands. “Sorry,” she mutters. “Okay. Yes. Fine. I’ll… I’ll get it together.”

“I have it on good authority that the Stones will book Li’l Sebastian for another three grand.” He sits back in his chair and looks up at the ceiling, folding his hands across his stomach. “Do with that what you will.”

***

So maybe Ron’s right. Fine. 

She can’t let this affect her work, and it already has. Ron’s right, Ron’s right, Ron’s right. Goddamnit. Leslie would never normally let go of anything this easily, and if she lets herself get away with this god knows where else this treacherous slope of quiescence will lead her. She needs to regain ground. _Get back on the horse,_ she thinks, smiling ironically.

Leslie finds Ben alone in the management offices. Her chest seizes and she wonders briefly, desperately, where Chris is, before she remembers he’s finished up and leaving for Indianapolis in a few days.

Ben’s got his head down, staring at the monitor in front of him. The only noise in the room is the clacking of his keyboard, the occasional click of his mouse and the sound of plastic dragging on one of Pawnee City Council’s cheap plastic mouse mats as he moves the cursor. Leslie chews her lip and crosses her arms, trying to work out what to say. Best to keep it professional. She just needs to clear things up.

The sound of her heels on the floor alerts Ben to her presence when she steps into his large, empty office and he looks up, startled.

“Leslie,” he says. He’s groping for more words but struggling to string a sentence together and all Leslie seems to be able to do is clutch her elbows and stare.

“Ben.” They look at each other for a moment before words start tumbling out of her mouth, all in a jumble, yet she can’t seem to stop herself. “You know how I said it was fine, before? With… um, with Coconut? It’s actually not fine. And I couldn’t have expected you to understand because you don’t, um, you don’t know Pawnee, but Li’l Sebastian is a super big deal here. And I know I only had the idea the other day that we could even try to get him, but here’s the thing, Ben, I really want… I mean, Li’l Sebastian is really great. He would be great. For the festival. And—”

“We’re talking about a horse here, right?”

_(She doesn’t like the derision in how he says the word ‘horse’, but that’s a battle she’ll fight later.)_

“Yes!” Leslie exclaims, too quickly. And then she drops her head into her hands. “Oh, god.”

“I’m lost,” Ben says, bewildered, getting to his feet. He looks at her searchingly and Leslie recoils, groans softly into her palms. Ben’s face falls as realisation washes over him like a slow-turning tide. _“Oh,”_ he breathes, hesitating. “Leslie…”

She inhales deeply and closes her eyes for a moment, bracing herself against Chris’s old desk. She looks at the floor. At anything but his warm, worried eyes. She doesn’t want to remember how deep and wanting they’d been last night, after he kissed her, or when she’d invited him into her bed. But she exhales, steels herself, and then forces herself to meet his gaze. “How early did you get here this morning?” she demands. It comes out more harshly than she wanted it to. Accusatory. She bites her lip and looks at him with wide, anxious eyes.

“I—” Ben starts, then stops again. He understands what she’s asking, the implication of it. The lights in the office. The coffee steaming on her desk, just how she takes it. His shoulders sag and he drops his head to his chest, looking up at Leslie with a wry kind of self-deprecation. “Pretty early,” he admits.

Leslie breathes.

There’s a long pause, a moment of understanding that passes between them, as they meet each other’s eyes and look away again, flushing. Leslie and Ben both laugh nervously, giving up the pretense. 

“Ben,” Leslie starts, taking a step forward, “I don’t do this. I really don’t do this—”

They both try to speak at once. “I hardly—”

“I just—”

And then as abruptly as they’d tried to start explaining themselves, they both break off and a heavier silence falls. The air grows thicker, more somber. Ben sighs and rubs the back of his neck.

Leslie licks her lips, hugging herself around the middle. “I’m… I might have miscommunicated—about the festival stuff, I guess. Maybe. It’s possible. I just didn’t want to be, um—” 

“Yeah. I know you wanted the cotton candy and the other horse, Leslie. You’re not… I mean, this is—” he sighs, frustrated, and tries again. “Look, you can’t just… not fight for things. You know? Because if you stopped fighting for Pawnee you wouldn’t be…” Ben contemplates her for a moment and she can’t escape it, then. _His look. The memory. The warmth of his gaze and his body._ There’s something anxious in his eyes as he looks at her, something rare and vulnerable. Regret, she supposes. He shakes his head and smiles and the look is gone, replaced with careful neutrality. “Well, you wouldn’t be Leslie Knope,” is what he says at last.

Leslie’s face burns. She curls her hands at her sides and feels her nails pinch her palms. “Fine,” she says, tilting her chin up to meet his eye. She swallows the lump forming in her throat. “Then I want however much Sweetums wants for the cotton candy. And I want three thousand dollars for Li’l Sebastian.”

Ben doesn’t quite smile, but there’s a quiet satisfaction behind his eyes, in the curve of his mouth. “Fine, but—”

Leslie crosses her arms. “You can’t say yes without making me cut something.”

“What I was going to say is you’ll need to cut one of the vendors so we can fit another corporate sponsor in.”

“Sue’s Salads.”

“The _fourth_ JJ’s truck.”

Leslie scowls. “Oh, JJ won’t like that. We promised him—”

“I know,” Ben smiles. “But I’m sure you’ll buy enough waffles to compensate him for the loss.” He has her there. Leslie crosses her arms, swallowing hard.

“Fine.”

“Good.”

***

It’s a fragile understanding, but it’s enough.

Except that, as the week passes, that treacherous slope keeps getting steeper.

Leslie has lunch with Ann and doesn’t mention Ben once. They have an old-fashioned, high decibel blowout over the cotton candy money on Friday _(the extra corporate sponsorship isn’t enough to cover it, as it turns out)_ but by Monday morning there’s a fresh spreadsheet on Leslie’s desk with numbers that add up perfectly. And a hot cup of coffee. Actually, there’s coffee on her desk every morning.

They’re dancing a dangerous tango—joined at the hip but leaning away, refusing to face each other but one in every way that matters.

They avoid eye contact in meetings, but they send emails around the clock. They don’t have lunch together except in the conference room, over work, in full view of Tom and Jerry and April. Leslie still calls Ben first thing in the morning and late at night to deal with crises, but they hang up as soon as they’re finished talking about work. 

Everything’s changed, and yet... And yet it’s so, so familiar.

Leslie wonders if she hasn’t done this all before.


End file.
